State v. Heathcoat, 1.

• Decision Date: 22 September 1937
• Docket Number: No. 1.,1.
• Citation: 119 N.J.L. 33,194 A. 252
• Parties: STATE v. HEATHCOAT.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

194 A. 252

119 N.J.L. 33

STATE

v. HEATHCOAT.

No. 1.

Court of Errors and Appeals of New Jersey.

September 22, 1937.

Error to Court of Oyer and Terminer, Mercer County.

Orby O. Heathcoat, alias Ramon A. Cota, was convicted of murder in the first degree, and he brings error.

Judgment affirmed.

Andrew M. Cella, John J. Boscarell, and Anthony Salamandra, all of Trenton, for plaintiff in error. Andrew J. Duch, of Trenton (Leo J. Rogers, of Trenton, of counsel), for defendant in error.

LLOYD, Justice.

The plaintiff in error was convicted of murder in the first degree, without recommendation of life imprisonment, and sentenced to death. He has a writ of error and argues in his brief specifications of causes for reversal under the 136th section of the Procedure Act (2 Comp.St.1910, p. 1863, § 136). Few of these specifications bring anything adequately before the court, but in view of the importance of the case we have examined the substantial contentions with the following result:

The first point argued is that the judge erred in not impaneling fourteen jurors as authorized by chapter 287 of the Laws of 1935 (N.J.St.Annual 1935, §§ 53— 11a to 53— lie). The validity of this legislation was passed upon affirmatively by this court in the case of State v. Dolbow, 117 N.J.Law 560, 189 A. 915. By its very terms the occasion for invoking the provisions of the act is placed in the discretion of the trial judge. That the judge failed to invoke the permissive authority conferred by the act, but adopted the time-honored jury of twelve without the calling of additional jurors, suggests to us no taint of illegality.

Other specifications are that the evidence was insufficient to sustain a verdict of murder in the first degree; that there was error in the denial of a motion to the same effect; and that the verdict was against the weight of the evidence. These grounds we think are not well founded. The plaintiff in error and the deceased had been living together as husband and wife and the latter disappeared on June 12, 1936. As a result of reports coming to the police authorities an investigation was made, and on August 4th Heathcoat was taken into custody and questioned. After two days he was released. On September 14th he was again taken into custody, and after questioning admitted having killed his wife and showed the police where he had buried her body under a shed attached to their home. His story as told in the statement and subsequently on the witness stand was to the effect that he threw a hammer at a man called Marty who was threatening to assault him and endanger his life, and that, instead of the hammer striking the man, it struck and killed the woman.

The State proceeded to discredit this statement and to establish the criminality of the act by showing that the hammer was used close to the woman's head; that he had made threats of intention to get rid of her as soon as he could get what money she had; proof of his infatuation for a woman named Miller who through his sexual relations had become pregnant. It also apeared that he was forging her name to pension checks and collecting the proceeds after the killing; that a week after her death he disposed of all of her furniture and other belongings and established the Miller woman and her father in his home, representing the former as his wife. There was thus presented the motive of getting rid of one woman that he might with freedom carry on' his connubial and sexual relations with another; the expressed purpose to kill after his wife's money was gone; the immediate appropriation of these assets and their hurried disposal. These, together with the discrediting of his own story and the secret hiding of the body, we think, amply demonstrated a killing designed and premeditated, and a killing that was willfully and deliberately executed....