State Of West Va. v. Goins
| Citation | 120 W.Va. 605 |
| Decision Date | 15 November 1938 |
| Docket Number | (No. 8796) |
| Parties | State of West Virginia v. Mattie Goins |
| Court | Supreme Court of West Virginia |
1. Jury
Jurors who were present and heard the accused enter a plea of guilty of murder in the first degree should not, after the plea is withdrawn and the circumstances recounted are known to the court, over objection be permitted to remain upon a panel from which a jury is to be drawn to try the accused upon the same indictment to which the plea of guilty was entered.
2. Criminal Law
It is the duty of the trial court when a case is submitted to a jury so that their verdict may be guilty of murder in the first degree to instruct them that in the event they return that verdict they may further find that the accused be punished by confinement in the penitentiary, in which case he will be sentenced to life imprisonment, and that otherwise the accused will he punished with death. (See Code, 62-3-15).
Error to Circuit Court, Marion County.
Mattie Goins was convicted of murder in the first degree, and she brings error.
Reversed and remanded.
L. C. Musgrave and A. R. Putnam, for plaintiff in error.
Clarence W. Meadows, Attorney General, Kenneth E. Hines, Assistant Attorney General, and Marlyn E. Lugar, Special Assistant Attorney General, for the State.
Mattie Goins was convicted of murder in the first degree without the jury including in its verdict a finding that she be sentenced to the penitentiary. The Criminal Court of Marion County on February 4, 1938, after motions to set aside the verdict and in arrest of judgment had been overruled, sentenced the defendant to be hanged. This writ of error is responsive to the application of the accused.
Robert Mitchell, whom the defendant fatally injured early in the morning of January 1, 1938, and defendant had known each other rather intimately for several years. On December 27, 1937, Robert Mitchell married another woman. Less than five days thereafter, Mattie Goins inflicted upon him the injuries from which he died January 2, 1938.
We have found no reversible error in connection with the rejection or admission of testimony, or the giving or the refusal of offered instructions. We consider it nonessential to recount the details of the assault which the defendant committed upon Mitchell. Her alleged justification was self-defense and there is much conflicting testimony. Evidently the jury gave credence to the state's witnesses.
Several days before the accused's plea of not guilty was entered, she had pleaded guilty in the presence of at least ten of the jurors on the panel when the trial jury was selected. Of course, her plea of guilty should have been, by order, entered of record, but it was not. The only way that it appears upon this record is by the indirect proof of making certain questions propounded to the panel by the trial judge a part of this record by a bill of exceptions and by defendant's affidavit. The bill of exceptions covering this procedure shows that ten of the jurors on the panel of twenty by arising in their places answered in the affirmative a question asked by the court, the answer disclosing that they had been present "one day last week" when the defendant entered a plea of guilty. This plea not having been made a part of the record, the defendant filed her affidavit revealing a part of the court procedure which the record itself did not disclose.
The trial court, having permitted the defendant to plead guilty after hearing the indictment read to her, but having assigned no counsel to advise her, thereafter, on motion of the state, struck out the plea of guilty and had the record show the defendant's plea of not guilty. The trial court, on the same occasion, assigned counsel to the defendant. On what date this was done does not appear from the record, but she was tried January 24th, which was Monday, and the trial court referred to this circumstance as having occurred "one day last week."
In impaneling and selecting the jury to try the defendant the trial court propounded to the panel of twenty, ten of whom had stated that they were present when the defendant had pleaded guilty, the question of whether or not that fact would influence them in any way in arriving at their verdict. The record discloses no response to this question. The defendant moved to continue the case against her and to discharge the panel because eleven of those thereon had heard her enter her plea of guilty. This motion was overruled, though it is obvious that the course taken by the trial court informed the entire panel of twenty men that the defendant before that time, and at the same term of court, had unqualifiedly pleaded guilty to the charge of murder, which plea the court thereafter, on motion of the state, required to be withdrawn. This is assigned as error.
Section 14 of Article III of our Constitution provides, referring to trials of crimes and misdemeanors, that "In all such trials, the accused shall be fully and plainly informed of the character and cause of the accusation, and confronted with the witnesses against him, and shall have the assistance of counsel, and a reasonable time to prepare for his defense; * * *." Under the Rules of Practice promulgated by this Court...
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