State v. Johnson, 56182
| Decision Date | 13 December 1971 |
| Docket Number | No. 56182,No. 2,56182,2 |
| Parties | STATE of Missouri, Respondent, v. James E. JOHNSON, Appellant |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
John C. Danforth, Atty. Gen., G. Michael O'Neal, Asst. Atty. Gen., Jefferson City, for respondent.
Smith & Askinosie, Springfield, for appellant.
BARRETT, Commissioner.
A jury found James E. Johnson guilty of manslaughter and fixed his punishment at five years' imprisonment. This is the background of the charge and conviction: William Edward Peters, age 45, James E. Johnson, age 31, and Phyllis Yvonne Deel, age 36, all resided in the vicinity of St. Albans, West Virginia. They were all alcoholics. In March 1970 they were going to Hawthorne, California, to see Phyllis' ill mother. They were traveling in Bill's 1959 Ford automobile with the agreement that Phyllis was to pay the expenses. And before they left St. Albans on Wednesday, March 11, 1970, Phyllis gave Johnson $300.00 in cash. Bill and Johnson had been drinking 'approximately two weeks' and they started out with two fifths of bourbon, 'Rocking Chair.' The first night out the three of them stayed in a motel 'the other side of St. Louis.' The second day, all drinking on the way, they arrived at the Bell Motel on Kearney Street in Springfield, Missouri, and rented units 11 and 12. The registration card for one unit read 'Mr. and Mrs. J. G. Johnson, 3115 Huntington Drive, Columbus, Ohio.' Johnson introduced Peters as 'his Uncle Bill.'
On the second day of the trip, Bill driving, Johnson and Phyllis had an argument and with his closed fist Johnson, In his autopsy report a pathologist described this particular injury as a 'hemorrhage of the lower lip.' After registering into the motel Phyllis protested that she did not want to get out of the automobile and refused to do so. Johnson, despite an injured leg, dragged Phyllis out of the automobile and, his hands under her armpits, dragged her into room 12. Bill immediately went to the bathroom in room 12, from his position there he could not see into the room but he could hear Johnson and Phyllis arguing and cursing and then 'I heard something that sounded like a slap, and they were arguing.' Shortly Johnson, who was dating Phyllis, announced that he was going next door to unit 11 and get some sleep. Bill and Phyllis had another drink or two, undressed and went to bed, Phyllis complaining of a headache. About 6 o'clock the next morning Johnson came into unit 12 and awakened Bill, they had some drinks and Phyllis 'raised upon her elbow and asked for a drink' but on Johnson's signal Bill did not give her a drink and in a few minutes Phyllis 'laid there snoring.' Soon she stopped snoring and when he got out of bed he looked at Phyllis 'and her eyes were wide open' and could not be closed. He listened to her chest and to Johnson said, An ambulance was called and Phyllis was pronounced dead on arrival in the hospital emergency room.
In this court appellant makes two related points both directed to the proposition that the evidence 'would not permit a jury to find defendant guilty as charged beyond a reasonable doubt without resorting to speculation, conjecture and guess.' The related and subsidiary contention is that the state's evidence (the defendant Johnson offered no evidence) failed to prove that Phyllis 'died from a mortal wound or blow inflicted upon deceased by defendant, this being an essential element of state's case.'
In the second contention the appellant rather ingeniously argues in great detail the facts of the autopsy, the numerous abrasions and injuries to Phyllis and says that there was no proof of a connection between the cause of death, a subdural hematoma, and a certain bruise on the forehead. As stated, Phyllis was an alcoholic and the autopsy revealed that she was intoxicated when she died and so the appellant argues that her 'fatty metamorphosis of the liver' caused by alcoholism was a contributing factor and 'hastened death.' Alcoholism and sodden drunkenness may indeed have been a contributing factor in Phyllis' death, as the doctor explained, but if so it was the appellant's misfortune to have assaulted a person whose death would be accelerated due to her physical condition, it is as if he had struck a hemophiliac 'one moderate blow with his fist' and 'the injury accelerated the death from the disease.' State v. Frazier, 339 Mo. 966, 98 S.W.2d 707, 712--713; State v. Cooley, Mo....
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