Smith v. State

• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: BURNETT
• Citation: Smith v. State, 205 Tenn. 502, 327 S.W.2d 308, 9 McCanless 502 (Tenn. 1959)
• Decision Date: 27 July 1959
• Parties: , 205 Tenn. 502 William A. SMITH and William J. Reynolds v. STATE of Tennessee.

Page 308

327 S.W.2d 308

9 McCanless 502, 205 Tenn. 502

William A. SMITH and William J. Reynolds v. STATE of Tennessee.

Supreme Court of Tennessee.

July 27, 1959.

Rehearing Denied Sept. 3, 1959.

Cecil D. Branstetter, Nashville, William A. Reynolds, Ralph E. Vineyard, Knoxville, for plaintiffs in error.

Thomas E. Fox, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

BURNETT, Justice.

The plaintiffs in error were found guilty of the first four counts of a five count indictment charging them with (1) conspiracy to take the life of Davis Robertson and divers other persons, (2) a conspiracy to take the life of Thomas Copeland and divers other persons, (3) conspiring to commit a felonious assault with intent to commit murder in the first degree upon the body of Davis Robertson and divers other persons, and (4) conspiring to commit a felonious assault with intent to commit murder in the first degree upon the body of Thomas Copeland and divers other persons. Both of these plaintiffs in error were found guilty and sentenced to serve not more than ten years for each offense. Judgment was entered upon this verdict and the sentences were ordered to run concurrently.

In each count of the indictment it is alleged that the person whose life was sought to be taken and others were 'acting as agents, servants and employees and contractors, and employees of contractors and subcontractors of and with a certain motor transportation firm known as B & S Motor Lines, Inc., * * *'. This is a quotation from the first count of the indictment but the other counts allege substantially the same. This allegation in the indictments is necessary to bring the proof of the alleged conspiracy within the confines of the indictment.

In the outset we feel that it is fair to say that in this large record of some 1800 pages of proof, 93 pages in the technical record and a 99 page brief and assignments of error, the case throughout has been one of the best tried cases from the standpoint of both the State and the defense that has been our privilege to read. It took more than a week to try the case and several days were consumed with taking proof and the argument of the motion for new trial wherein all of the jurors were placed upon the stand by the defense, and certain questions and facts hereinafter to be referred to were developed. The trial judge was unusually fair, patient and painstaking in the trial of this case from the standpoint of all parties.

Under the facts as developed in this record the jury were clearly warranted in finding facts as follows: (The overwhelming preponderance in this factual situation as developed in this record supports such a finding): A strike was called in Nashville by the Teamsters' Union at the B & S Motor Lines in early 1955. The strike was probably called off for a short time but under the proof it lasted from May 2, 1955, until October 16, 1955. During this period the plaintiff in error Smith had many uninvited contacts with the President of the B & S Motor Lines. A number of these contacts were late at night when Smith would appear, at times, on the property of the B & S Terminal in Nashville. The record is probably without contradiction that on some of these occasions Smith used toward the President of this Company, and to his face, the most violent epithets and vituperative cursing that we have ever read. Smith in his testimony herein does not deny this fact but in effect admits it and says that the President likewise cursed him. His attitude toward this President is also shown by two or three instances of his demeanor and his actions toward this President, and of his threats toward this Company, if they continued to hire 'ununion' employees to drive tractors and pull these large motor trailers or trucks belonging to the B & S Lines.

At the time this strike was going on B & S hired independent contractors and others to use their own cab or motor, that is, the independent contractors' cab or motor, to pull and transport these large trucks to different points and particularly from the terminal of the B & S Motor Lines in Nashville to its terminal in Charlotte, North Carolina. These actions of the plaintiff in error Smith were shown to have happened a number of times in and around Nashville.

In June, 1955, the B & S Motor Lines sent two of these large trucks, at different hours, from their Nashville terminal to their North Carolina terminal. One of these trucks left Nashville on Saturday, June 11th, and the driver and owner of the motor drove it to his home out near Manchester and parked the truck at a place some 6 miles away from his home. He went home and spent the night. Sometime during the next day which was Sunday, he left and drove through Knoxville on his way to North Carolina. He arrived at a filling station in Knoxville which is just practically across the street from the Labor Temple where the offices of the Teamsters Union were located, at that time, at about 10:00 o'clock that night. This motor left there around that time and when just within Knox County and before it arrived at the Sevier County line the operator of this truck testifies that for some little distance, before the event hereinafter to be related occurred, cars had been following this truck--they did not pass as cars ordinarily did--and that just before he got into Sevier County this car, which was a two-toned red and white General Motors car (it was not known whether it was a Buick or a Pontiac), passed the truck and in a very few minutes a car came back toward them at a rather high rate of speed with his bright lights on and just as this car passed them a shot or shots were fired at this truck. It is certainly inferable that this car was the same one that had passed immediately before. This driver says when they got some three quarters of a mile away, at the top of a hill, they stopped and were not able to find where the truck was hit. Later when they got over into North Carolina it developed that one of the inside front tires (the truck carries dual tires in the front) had been shot into and the bullet that was found in this tire was taken out and turned over to the officers.

Later another truck of the B & S Motor Lines left Nashville, being pulled by a motor owned by an independent contractor and operated by one Copeland. This truck came through Knoxville and on out the same highway toward North Carolina. This truck was some hour or more behind the truck above related. The driver of this truck testifies that a similar red and white two-toned car passed them and then came back toward them with their bright lights on and shot through the windshield of the truck, the bullet striking the steering wheel and ricocheting off in the truck cab. This bullet was recovered and identified in the evidence as a 38 caliber bullet. After this shooting into the truck, there were other shots likewise shot at the truck. All of this shooting occurred around midnight on Sunday, June 12, 1955.

The record shows without contradiction that the plaintiff in error Smith, who was the assistant business agent of this Union in Nashville, left Nashville sometime about midnight on Saturday night, June 11, 1955, arriving in Knoxville and registering at the Farragut Hotel about 6:45 A.M. Sunday morning, June 12, 1955; that he registered under an assumed name and parked the car which he drove in the garage of the Farragut Hotel in his own name; that the car that he was driving was a new red and white two-toned Buick which he had borrowed from someone in Nashville; that on the Sunday night around 10:00 o'clock, at about the time the first truck was at the filling station across from the Labor Temple, Smith received a call at the Farragut Hotel and went down to the garage to get his car; that he had some trouble in getting it because he had registered under a different name from that in which the car was in; that due to this delay he cursed a little and finally, when he got the car out (the attendant drove it out to the alley), he drove away very rapidly; that then within what the jury could have found, from the time he left there and went to the Labor Temple and on up the highway, this shooting could have taken place from this automobile. This automobile which was driven by Smith corresponded with the one that it was testified as the one from which the shots came and which was following these trucks.

On this same Sunday night at about 12:45 o'clock after midnight, Smith was admitted to a hospital in Maryville with a gunshot wound through the fleshy part of his arm near the elbow; this gunshot wound was made with a 38 caliber bullet; that Smith entered this hospital at that time and was hospitalized for some three or four days but that no one took him in the hospital as far as the record shows at the time. When he was able he was taken back home to Nashville.

The record also shows by a local florist that while Smith was in the hospital the local Union sent him flowers.

Smith refused to tell the doctor or law enforcement officers at the time how he got shot, merely telling them it was an accident. No one was mentioned by him or how this happened even though it was investigated by the Sheriff's office of Blount County and the law enforcement officers of the State.

Some two years after these happenings a woman who worked in the office at Knoxville of the local Teamsters Union testified before a Congressional hearing to certain facts. Upon learning of this the present indictment for conspiracy was brought against these parties. This woman testified herein that on Friday before this shooting occurred that the plaintiff in error Reynolds received a long distance call from Nashville and that he talked to plaintiff in error Smith. All she heard them say was 'the Farragut'. Of course the inference is that Smith was going to stay at the Farragut Hotel and was coming over to Knoxville. A few days after the shooting but while Smith was in the hospital at Maryville,...