State v. Hadley
| Decision Date | 09 June 1952 |
| Docket Number | No. 2,No. 42919,42919,2 |
| Citation | 249 S.W.2d 857 |
| Parties | STATE v. HADLEY |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Ivan H. Light, St. Louis, for appellant.
J. E. Taylor, Atty. Gen., Lawrence L. Bradley, Asst. Atty. Gen., for respondent.
Defendant, Roy C. Hadley, was brought to trial upon an indictment charging him with the offense of murder in the first degree in the killing of his wife, Flora Belle Hadley, on February 26, 1930, in the City of St. Louis. The jury found defendant guilty as charged, and assessed his punishment at life imprisonment. Following the overruling of his motion for a new trial and the pronouncement of judgment in accordance with the verdict, defendant applied for and was granted an appeal to this court.
Defendant was taken into custody immediately after the commission of the alleged offense; and upon an information being filed against him, he entered a plea of guilty and was thereupon sentenced to imprisonment in the state penitentiary, where he was confined from March, 1930, until December, 1949, when, in a proceeding in this court in habeas corpus, his plea and the judgment rendered thereon was vacated and set aside upon the ground of want of counsel, and he was ordered remanded to the St. Louis city jail to await further proceedings according to law. The present indictment for the same offense was returned on February 3, 1950, and the trial begun on the following May 1st, culminating in the verdict of guilty on May 6th.
According to the state's evidence, the married life of defendant and the deceased had been turbulent from the beginning. Defendant was given to the use of vile and vicious language towards his wife and children; on occasions he had beaten his wife in the presence of one or the other of the children; and not only had he repeatedly threatened to kill his wife and the entire family, but on at least one of such occasions he had actually flourished a revolver. Over the years of the marriage there had been numerous separations, each followed by a temporary reconciliation except for the last, which had occurred two years before the tragedy.
During the period of the last separation defendant had lived in Memphis, Tennessee. However, the deceased had remained in St. Louis; had supported hereself by employment as a seamstress at the Angelica Jacket Company; and had maintained a home in the upstairs premises at 2116 Waverly Place, where she resided with the other members of the family consisting of a son, David, and a daughter, Feary, along with the latter's husband, one John Hubbard. Feary was sixteen years of age at the time of the shooting, while David and John Hubbard were each twenty years of age. Defendant was forty-five years of age and his wife forty at the time the casualty occurred.
Throughout the time that defendant had lived in Memphis he had written his wife as many as thirty or forty letters, some of which had contained the usual threat that unless his wife would agree to another reconciliation, he would kill her and all the family. His attitude over the years had caused his wife and children to live in constant fear of what rash thing he might sometime do. While in the light of all the cricumstances it would be a mockery to say that he entertained true affection for his wife, he was undoubtedly possessed of a dominant and overpowering desire for her companionship.
Eventually defendant decided to return to St. Louis in the hope of bringing about a reconciliation with his wife; and some three or four days before leaving Memphis he purchased the revolver with which the homicide was perpetrated. After the crime had been committed he told a police officer that he had bought the revolver for the purpose of killing his wife if she should refuse to make up with him.
There was testimony of a statement by defendant that the day before the shooting he had met his wife in the vicinity of her home and had unavailingly attempted to prevail upon her to live with him again.
On the following day defendant arrived at his wife's home around five o'clock in the afternoon, armed with the revolver which he had previously bought in Memphis. As he entered the hall from whence a front stairway led up to the quarters occupied by his wife and family, his daughter, Feary, was seated at the telephone in an alcove behind the stairway in such a position that only his feet were visible to her. Feary's husband, John Hubbard, was standing by her side, but he and defendant were wholly unacquainted, since his marriage to Feary had occurred during the period of defendant's residence in Memphis. Apparently defendant did not recognize his daughter, and inquired of her and Hubbard where Flora Hadley's apartment was to be found. Feary answered, 'Upstairs', and as defendant started up the stairs, Feary recognized him and called out to him not to harm her mother.
As Feary spoke, Hubbard looked up towards defendant, and seeing that he had a revolver in his hand, started to run up the rear stairs to warn the deceased, but was only part way up when he saw that defendant had already entered the kitchen where the deceased was sitting at a table, and had grasped her by the wrist. The deceased had begun to scream the moment defendant entered the room. Hearing a noise outside the room, defendant turned in its direction, and observing Hubbard coming up the stairway, he backed up against the door through which Hubbard would make his entry. Hubbard forced the door open with his shoulder, and as he did so and was in the act of entering the room, defendant fired a bullet through his chest, causing him to fall backwards down the steps, where he landed at Feary's feet. While he lay in this position Hubbard heard a second shot, which was the one that inflicted the fatal wound on the deceased.
During this whole occurrence the son, David, was in a room to the front where he was changing clothes to go out for the evening. He heard his mother's screams, as well as the two shots, after which the screaming ceased. As soon as he heard the screams he started to run towards the kitchen, and in his search for a weapon picked up a metal candlestick which was standing on the mantelpiece. The moment he entered the kitchen he grabbed for the revolver in his father's hand and began striking his father over the head with the candlestick.
Both shots had been fired before David had reached the kitchen, and it was not until after he had subdued his father that he glanced over his shoulder and saw his mother lying on the floor. He expressly denied having every told anyone that his mother had been killed when the revolver had been accidently discharged while he and his father were struggling for its possession. This, incidentally, was defendant's purported explanation of the homicide in which he was in direct conflict with the state's evidence, as has already appeared. Still other evidence was to the effect that when defendant was taken to the hospital for the treatment of the wounds inflicted upon his head by the blows with the candlestick, he made the statement that his purpose in going to the premises had been to kill his wife, and that if it were all to be done over, he would still be of the same intention.
For his first point defendant complains of the action of the court in permitting the state to show that he had entered a formal plea of guilty when he was arraigned at the original hearing in March, 1930.
The matter of the plea of guilty was first injected into the case during defendant's direct examination, when it was brought out that after the murder charge had been lodged against him, his brother, Vern Hadley, a newspaperman from Atlanta, Georgia, had interested himself in his behalf to the point of allegedly arranging with the then circuit attorney that if he would enter a plea of guilty, appropriate steps would be taken to get him a parole within a possible period of three years. He insisted, however, that at the time of entering his plea he had known nothing, and was not advised, of the different degrees of homicide.
On cross-examination defendant reitermated his understanding of the promise of a parole, and testified that the matter was 'confirmed' by the late Judge Henry A. Hamilton, who took his plea of guilty. In fact, he testified that at the conclusion of the hearing Judge Hamilton had put his arm around his shoulder and had given him verbal assurances indicating his knowledge of the arrangement that had been made. He later explained, however, that Judge Hamilton had not personally told him to plead guilty and everything would be all right, but stated that the judge himself 'was not in on it'.
Judge Hamilton was called by the state in rebuttal, and testified that when defendant was called upon to plead, he had entered a plea of guilty, and that defendant had not been promised an early parole by himself or by anyone else while he was present.
The thing that defendant specifically complains of is Judge Hamilton's testimony that he had pleaded guilty, the contention being that in view of his own previous statement that the judge 'was not in on it', the judge's testimony was not in rebuttal of anything he had said, and that it was particularly prejudicial to show his plea of guilty after the same had been set aside and vacated by this court in the habeas corpus...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Icgoren v. State
...State v. Dehler, 257 Minn. 549, 102 N.W.2d 696 (1960) (delay of over fifteen years between first and second proceeding); State v. Hadley, 249 S.W.2d 857, 862 (Mo.1952) (delay due to reversal resulting from "belated" discovery of error not grounds for dismissal); Application of Hayes, 301 P.......
-
State v. Egan
...of the jury, particularly where, as in the instant case, the court promptly instructs the jury to disregard such answers [State v. Hadley, Mo., 249 S.W.2d 857, 862(8); State v. Walker, Mo., 46 S.W.2d 569, 570(2); State v. Holmes, 316 Mo. 122, 289 S.W. 904, 906-907(2)]. Declaring a mistrial ......
-
State v. Lowry, s. 437 and 438
...which might be caused by the fault of the prosecution. Pollard v. United States, 352 U.S. 354, 77 S.Ct. 481, 1 L.Ed.2d 393; State v. Hadley, Mo., 249 S.W.2d 857. The right to a speedy trial on the merits is not designed as a sword for defendant's escape, but as a shield for his No general p......
-
State v. Patton
...which might be caused by the fault of the prosecution. Pollard v. United States, 352 U.S. 354, 77 S.Ct. 481, 1 L.Ed.2d 393; State v. Hadley, Mo., 249 S.W.2d 857. The right to a speedy trial on the merits is not designed as a sword for defendant's escape, but as a shield for his But here the......