State v. Lloyd
| Decision Date | 12 March 1926 |
| Docket Number | 19565. |
| Citation | 138 Wash. 8,244 P. 130 |
| Parties | STATE v. LLOYD et al. |
| Court | Washington Supreme Court |
Department 1.
Appeal from Superior Court, Pierce County; Teats, Judge.
Arden Lloyd and Charles Kinney were convicted of murder, and they appeal. Reversed, and new trial ordered.
Lloyd & Croteau, of Tacoma, and Vance & Christensen of Olympia, for appellants.
J. W Selden and Thomas F. Ray, both of Tacoma, for the State.
At 9:30 on the morning of February 7, 1925, one Harry Schmidt, an assistant cashier of the National Bank of Tacoma, accompanied by a bank messenger named West, went by street car to a branch of that bank operated on Thirty-Eighth Street South in the city of Tacoma, for the purpose of delivering currency and specie necessary for the day's business, amounting to approximately $4,000, about $3,000 of which was in silver and all of which consisted of considerable bulk. They alighted from the street car, and, just as they were about to enter the bank door from the outside, Harry Schmidt was ruthlessly shot in the back, from which shot he shortly thereafter died. At the time he was shot another man appeared with a pistol in his hand, giving the order, 'Put up your hands.' The murder was committed by the two men for the purpose of robbing the bank officials, and, as appears from the mere statement, was a most atrocious and unjustifiable homicide. Following the shooting a satchel and bags of specie carried by the messenger and assistant cashier were seized by the two killers, who jumped into a waiting automobile, and for a time escaped. The car was never found thereafter. As the murder occurred on a well-traversed street, and in broad daylight, a number of people had an opportunity to observe it, and some of the witnesses thereof were upon the street car that carried the murdered man and the messenger to the scene of the killing. A few days after the homicide these appellants were arrested and charged with the crime of murder in the first degree. The shooting seems to have been done with a revolver, and the gun held by the other man who held up the messenger was also a revolver. The bullet that caused the death wound was a revolver bullet, and not that of an automatic pistol.
Appellants were first tried in April, 1925, which trial resulted in a mistrial. In June following they were again placed upon trial. When the general venire which was to try the cases for the June and July term reported in the criminal department of the superior court, the presiding judge addressed the entire venire, with the exception, appellants assert, of one panel of the trial jurors then hearing a case in another department, and 'lectured' them upon their duties as jurors in criminal cases. The 'lecture,' which is set out in full in the record, is strenuously attacked as a comment upon the evidence, in violation of section 16, article 4, of the state Constitution.
At the beginning of the trial, when the jury was being obtained, the trial judge refused to allow veniremen upon their voir dire to be sworn for examination, and, after considerable controversy between the trial judge and attorneys for appellants, the court made an order to be entered upon the journal of the court as follows:
During the examination of the jurors the trial judge refused to allow jurors called into the box to be sworn as to their general qualifications as jurors, or examined upon their voir dire therefor. Neither of appellants nor their respective counsel was present in court at the time the trial judge had sworn all the 99 jurors then serving at that term of court in each and all of the cases to be called, as recited in the foregoing order.
A special defense interposed by each of appellants was that of an alibi. Upon that subject the trial court gave the following instruction:
During the production of evidence the state called one Mrs. Hoskins as one of its witnesses. She was asked certain questions by the prosecution, the answers to which were not satisfactory. She was then asked whether she had not made certain statements, specifying them in detail, in the presence of the jury, to Mr. Ray, the assistant prosecuting attorney who was examining the witness, and also in the presence of Mr. Peterson, a detective of the police department of Tacoma, and, upon her denying that she had made such statements to them, Mr. Ray, the deputy prosecuting attorney, and Mr. Peterson, the detective, were permitted to take the stand and testify that the witness produced by the state had made the statements presented to her in the questions of the deputy prosecuting attorney at the place and time mentioned.
At the time of the arrest of appellant Kinney in Seattle, Wash., a .45 caliber automatic pistol, army model, was found under his pillow in his room in the hotel three days after the robbery. It was offered in evidence in the trial of this case, although its identity or resemblance to either of the weapons used in the robbery and murder was not proven by the prosecution, and, in fact, was denied by its witnesses. Although it was afterwards rejected by the trial court, it remained in the presence of the jury for a considerable period of time, and testimony as to its being found at the time of the arrest of appellant Kinney was put before the jury.
Other matters and things complained of occurring during the trial are detailed at considerable length in the briefs of appellants, and verified by the record. These other matters are none of them to our minds sufficiently prejudicial to justify a reversal of the judgment of conviction in this case, although some of them are subject to criticism.
First considering the general remarks to the venire, set forth on motion for a new trial, vehemently assailed by appellants, consisting of a lengthy dissertation as to the duties and functions of juries in criminal cases, much of it discussing matters for which courts are frequently criticized, we are obliged to say that, so far as the record in this case is concerned, there is no affirmative showing that any juror who sat in the trial of this case heard the previous general remarks of the trial judge. Appellants themselves assert that of the 99 veniremen in attendance upon the trial court at that time 12 jurors were absent trying another case, and there is nothing in the record here to show that a number of other jurors were not trying other cases in other departments of the lower cou...
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State v. Neslund
...was used in the commission of the charged crime and under State v. Robinson, 24 Wash.2d 909, 167 P.2d 986 (1946), and State v. Lloyd, 138 Wash. 8, 244 P. 130 (1926), weapons not used in the commission of the charged crime are inadmissible. Recently our state Supreme Court disagreed that the......
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State v. Saintcalle
...to avoid “sharp practice” and to serve the ends of justice. State v. Biles, 6 Wash. 186, 188, 33 P. 347 (1893); see State v. Lloyd, 138 Wash. 8, 14–15, 244 P. 130 (1926) (rules of evidence apply); RCW 4.44.240. In contrast, litigants are afforded a limited number of peremptory challenges an......
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State v. Jeffries
...of such evidence is prohibited by ER 404(b). 3 Defendant cites State v. Robinson, 24 Wash.2d 909, 167 P.2d 986 (1946) and State v. Lloyd, 138 Wash. 8, 244 P. 130 (1926) for the proposition that weapons not used in the commission of a crime are inadmissible. The cases, however, do not suppor......
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State v. Hyder
...juror 25 came in late and was not sworn in with the other potential jurors in his presence, reversal is required under State v. Lloyd.45 But Lloyd does not require this result. Lloyd was a homicide prosecution in which the court reversed and remanded for a new trial on three alternative gro......
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Chapter §47.6 Analysis
...routinely administered. Id. at 499. Omission of the voir dire oath could be considered a trial error. Id. at 501; see also State v. Lloyd, 138 Wash. 8, 14, 244 P. 130 (1926). Counsel must object to the omission immediately upon discovery so that the trial court may promptly correct the erro......
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Table of Cases
...111 Wn.2d 66 (1988): 46.7(3)(a) State v. Lichtenberg, 4 Wash. 407, 30 P. 716 (1892): 65.6(2)(b), 65.6(5)(b), 65.6(6) State v. Lloyd, 138 Wash. 8, 244 P. 130 (1926): 47.6(1) State v. Marks, 90 Wn.App. 980, 955 P.2d 406, review denied, 136 Wn.2d 1024 (1998): 59.5(2)(i) State v. Martin, 14 Wn.......