Price v. State
| Decision Date | 29 July 1930 |
| Docket Number | 63. |
| Citation | 151 A. 409,159 Md. 491 |
| Parties | PRICE v. STATE. [a1] |
| Court | Maryland Court of Appeals |
Appeal from Criminal Court of Baltimore City; Robert F. Stanton Judge.
Lorenzo Price was convicted of murder in the first degree, and he appeals.
Reversed and venire de novo awarded.
Argued before BOND, C.J., and URNER, ADKINS, OFFUTT, DIGGES, PARKE and SLOAN, JJ.
John M. Lyell, of Baltimore, for appellant.
Herbert R. O'Conor, State's Atty., of Baltimore, and Herbert Levy, Asst. Atty. Gen. (Thomas H. Robinson, Atty. Gen., and Elmer J. Hammer, Asst. State's Atty., of Baltimore, on the brief), for the State.
The appellant was, upon trial by a jury in the criminal court of Baltimore city, found guilty of murder in the first degree; and after a review of the proceedings by the judges of the supreme bench of Baltimore city as a whole, on a motion for a new trial, and after the overruling of that motion, was sentenced to death. He has now brought before this court for its consideration two groups of exceptions, one of exceptions taken during the examination of talesmen for service on the jury, and one of exceptions taken during the trial. The charge was, more specifically, that on January 2, 1930, Price had killed one Reuben Heyman by shooting, after he had stopped Heyman's automobile on a road in the suburbs of Baltimore.
The talesmen, as they were questioned by the court as to their qualifications for service, were asked whether they had conscientious scruples against the infliction of capital punishment; and those who answered that they had, were asked further, whether their scruples were such as could not be overcome by evidence. And those whose scruples could not be overcome by evidence were, on challenge by the state, excused for cause. Counsel for the defendant objected to these questions, and the overruling of his objections is the subject of the first group of thirty-eight exceptions. In support of the objections, it is urged that since by the act of 1916, chapter 214, Code, art. 27, § 403, juries may, upon rendering verdicts of murder in the first degree, limit the punishment of life imprisonment by adding the words, "without capital punishment," conscientious scruples against capital punishment would not interfere with a juror's uniting in such verdicts, but would only necessitate the limitation of punishment in order to make it possible for him to unite. And such a limitation enforced by the vote of one or more jurors having conscientious scruples against capital punishment is, on the appellant's construction, within the intention and purpose of the act of 1916. But in this the court disagrees. In our opinion, it was the purpose of the act to empower juries to unite in a choice of punishment, that is, a choice between limiting punishment to life imprisonment and leaving the court unrestricted in fixing the punishment; and it was intended that all jurors should exercise a discretion in making that choice. A juror who should be prevented by conscientious scruples from joining in the exercise of the discretion would in our opinion be disqualified for performance of one of the functions devolved upon the jury, and should on challenge be excused for cause, as the talesmen were in this instance. The argument now made may have support in the decisions of courts in a few other states, but the great weight of authority seems to be in accord with the view we take. See Commonwealth v. Bentley, 287 Pa. 539, 135 A. 310; State v. Juliano, 103 N. J. Law, 663, 138 A. 575.
We are unable to find any error in the action which is the subject of the first group of exceptions.
On the trial, it was contended in defense that the accused was insane at the time of the killing, so that he could not be held guilty of murder, or, at least, not of murder in the first degree. And Cena Price, his wife, testified that six months after his marriage in 1920, her husband, who had been wounded in the war, "began acting so funny," and complained that his leg bothered him; and at her suggestion, she said, he went to the Government Hospital at Ft. McHenry for treatment. She added that his leg had been treated at the hospital, but that "they have not done anything to his mind." And upon objection the court struck out her statement that they had not done anything to his mind. That action constitutes the subject of the thirty-ninth exception. The objection to its admissibility is that it constitutes hearsay testimony. It is not apparent that the admission or exclusion of the particular item of testimony would have any importance in the case, but if its exclusion had been erroneous the error would seem to have been corrected by the exhibition at the trial of the hospital records of treatment, and the lack of any record in them of treatment for mental condition. We find no reversible error, therefore, in the ruling covered by the thirty-ninth exception.
The same witness testified, further, to actions of the defendant between 1920 and 1929, relevant to the question of his sanity, and said that in January, 1929, a year before the killing of Heyman, she herself went to talk to a Mr. Stevenson of the Veterans' Bureau; but on objection by the state, she was not permitted to testify that her purpose in going was to have her husband's mental condition investigated. And the exclusion of that testimony forms the subject of the fortieth exception. The testimony, according to counsel's statement to the trial court, was sought as evidence of the wife's view of the seriousness of her husband's mental condition, and it was urged that as such it was admissible even though nothing was done at the Veterans' Bureau in response to her application. The trial court considered the testimony irrelevant, and we concur in that ruling. The witness was permitted to narrate every incident in her husband's behavior upon which an inference of abnormality might be based. And the question objected to called for an impression or a question which was in her mind when she went to the Veteran's Bureau, and not for any facts which might assist the jury to ascertain the defendant's mental condition. We find no error in the ruling thus excepted to.
All concur.
PARKE, J., delivered the opinion of the court with respect to the jurisdiction of the trial court to enter a judgment on the verdict. BOND, C.J., and URNER and OFFUTT, JJ., dissenting.
During the course of the trial the traverser offered evidence of his mental state. The record discloses that the question of capacity was argued before the jury and that the attorney for prisoner requested that the court give to the jury for its guidance typewritten forms of the alternative verdicts which might be rendered. The court then exhibited to the counsel a paper containing the following six verdicts: Guilty of murder in the first degree; (2) guilty of murder in the first degree without capital punishment; (3) guilty of murder in the second degree; (4) not guilty of murder, guilty of manslaughter; (5) not guilty; and (6) not guilty by reason of insanity, insane at the time of the commission of the offense and insane now. The attorney for the accused objected to the sixth form of verdict, and the judge advised him that the written forms would not be handed to the jury if he had any objection. The clerk then stated that the verdicts were those which had been used ever since he had been in the criminal court; and thereupon the attorney for the prisoner withdrew all objections to the paper, which was then delivered to the jury. The jury retired and returned in a few minutes with a verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree. As the action of the court was upon the express assent of the prisoner's attorney, there was neither objection made nor exception taken. No question is attempted to be presented by a writ of error, and, if there be any reviewable question on this appeal, it must be presented by the appeal from the judgment on the verdict. It is a general principle and a statutory provision that any ruling of the court which is not presented by a demurrer, an exception, a motion to quash, or in arrest of judgment, or to strike out the judgment for fraud or irregularity, cannot be considered on appeal. Neither the gravity of the offense nor the nature of the penalty can justify a departure from the precedent and statute upon which this rule firmly rests. Code, art. 5, §§ 4, 10; Moore v. State, 149 Md. 298, 300, 131 A. 452; Munshower v. State, 56 Md. 514; Dunn v. State, 140 Md. 163, 117 A. 329; Mitchell v. State, 82 Md. 527, 533, 34 A. 246; Davis v. State, 39 Md. 355, 386; Simonson v. State, 143 Md. 413, 417, 122 A. 362; Brill v. State, 144 Md. 68, 74, 124 A. 414; Novak v. State, 139 Md. 538, 542, 115 A. 853; Kenny v. State, 121 Md. 120, 123, 87 A. 1109.
The application of the rule stated is, however, subject to the implicit condition that the court have jurisdiction to render the judgment from which the appeal is taken. This limitation upon its operation is as well established as the rule. In Horner v. O'Laughlin, 29 Md. 465, 470, the rule and the condition of its applicability were stated when it was held that a judgment of a court of record proceeding according to the course of the common law could not be reversed ...
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Evans v. State
..."conscientious scruples" against the imposition of the death penalty. Corens v. State, 185 Md. 561, 45 A.2d 340 (1946); Price v. State, 159 Md. 491, 151 A. 409 (1930). In 1968, the Supreme Court narrowed the permissible scope of this practice and held that "a sentence of death cannot be car......