State v. MARTIN
| Decision Date | 29 August 1949 |
| Docket Number | No. 5139,5139 |
| Citation | 209 P.2d 525,53 N.M. 413 |
| Parties | STATE v. MARTIN et al. |
| Court | New Mexico Supreme Court |
Joe L. Martinez, Attorney General, Walter R. Kegel, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.
Fletcher A. Catron, Santa Fe, for appellant Henry P. Martin.
Barker & Guthmann, Santa Fe, for appellants Melisendro Lopez and Toribio Martinez.
A. L. Zinn, Dean S. Zinn, Santa Fe, for appellant Remijio Joe Martinez.
Henry P. Martin, together with Melisendro Lopez, Toribio Martinez and Remijio Joe Martinez were jointly tried upon a charge of having murdered Julian Martinez and were convicted of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to terms in the state penitentiary. From this judgment andsentences they have appealed to this court. The parties will be referred to as they appeared in the lower court.
The tragedy, out of which arose the information and conviction of these defendants, took place in a small bar room located in the village of Chimayo, Santa Fe County. At the time there were present besides the deceased, Henry P. Martin, Melisendro Lopez, Toribio Martinez and Emilio Martinez. The defendant Remijio Joe Martinez was not present at the time of the wrestling and injury to deceased. The cause of death of the deceased, it is contended, was injuries to his head inflicted by being violently thrown against the door of the bar room and exposure.
The deceased, Julian Martinez, went to the saloon operated by Willie Martinez, at about 4:00 o'clock on the afternoon of March 23, 1947. He was 54 years old, about five feet six inches tall and weighed around 140 pounds and apparently in good health. Liquor was being sold at the saloon on that day, notwithstanding it was Sunday and against the State law. Every one in the saloon was drinking. About eight o'clock, Martin began to wrestle with the deceased, which match according to eye witnesses was a two round affair. The first time Martin tossed the deceased over his head at and against the base of the stove in the bar room. The deceased got up of his own volition and walked to the end of the bar where he engaged in conversation with one of the patrons. Within a few minutes thereafter, Martin, the superior in physical strength, again grabbed the deceased and tossed him over his shoulder causing him to hit the jamb of the door with his head, thereby inflicting serious injuries and knocking the deceased unconscious. He was picked up from the floor by the defendant Martin and Emilio Martinez and placed on a bench next to some empty beer cases. He never got up nor did he thereafter utter a word. At about midnight the defendants Melisendro Lopez, Toribio Martinez and Remijio Joe Martinez put Julian Martinez in a car, took him about a mile and a half from the saloon and there placed him on the side of the highway where his body was discovered the next morning between 5:30 and 6:00 o'clock by Esquipula Martinez and others. The testimony of these three defendants and that of Emilio Martinez, a state witness, is, that Julian Martinez was dead at the time he was removed from the saloon and placed alongside the highway.
A preliminary examination was made by Dr. Dwight F. Rife, a practicing physician, the next day at about 2:30 o'clock in the afternoon. As a result of this examination, the doctor testified, that in his opinion, death had taken place from sixteen to eighteen hours previous thereto. He found a deep laceration on the left forehead above the left eye going to the bone, severeabrasions of the skin about the left eye and left cheek bone, and that this eye was swollen and extremely disclored. On the same day at 7:00 o'clock, he made an autopsy of the body which disclosed a fractured skull, a large hemorrhagic area about the size of his palm just under the scalp laceration above the left eye, multiplebrain hemorrhages entirely through the brain, a basal skull fracture above the left eye shaped somewhat like a star but under an inch in length at its widest part. He testified that, strangely, there was not a great deal of bleeding into the brain covering this location, and that other organs examined did not show anything conclusive. Also, that there was a little blood coming from the mouth and recent cuts and scratches on the fingers of his left hand. The doctor expressed the opinion that the head wounds could have been inflicted with a blunt instrument and possibly could have resulted by throwing the deceased against the wall. He also stated that, in his opinion, the blows to the head resulting in a brain injury were not sufficient, alone, to have caused Julian Martinez's death. He further testified, that in his opinion, the death of the deceased resulted from a combination of concussion, shock and exposure.
The State's theory is, of course, that the defendant Henry P. Martin inflicted the head wounds, and that while the deceased was lingering and still alive the other three defendants carried him from the bar and placed him alongside the highway, where he finally died from a combination of the injuries and exposure.
The defendant, Martin, interposes the defense that he did not inflict the wounds which caused the death of the deceased and that deceased was still alive at the time the other defendants removed him from the saloon and placed him alongside the highway where he was found dead.
The defendant, Remijio Joe Martinez puts in the defense that at the time he left the saloon the deceased was still alive and that when he returned to the saloon he was dead. That he had been removed from the saloon while still alive and placed on a wood pile outside the saloon where he died from the wounds and exposure.
The defendants, Melisendro Lopez and Toribio Martinez, set up the defense that Julian Martinez was dead at the time they, together with the defendant Remijio Joe Martinez, removed his body from the bar room and placed it alongside the highway. That the body was not removed from a wood pile but that all three removed it from the saloon.
The trial was in many respects more of a contest between the defendants themselves than between the State and the defendants. The State frequently stood by and witnessed a combat in which the defendants attempted to destroy each other. This is indicated bythe opening statements made to the jury by respective counsel for these defendants.
At the conclusion of the state's case in chief the defendant Martin, rested and moved the court for a directed verdict. His motion was overruled and thereafter the defendants Lopez and Toribio Martinez took the stand. Each of these defendants gave damaging testimony against Martin. He attempted to cross examine each of them but was denied the privilege of doing so unless he would withdraw his announcement that he had rested his case. Martin declined to make such announcement, and assigns this action of the court as error.
We have this situation: Martin did not desire to offer any evidence in his behalf and so announced to the trial court, yet on account of his refusal to meet the condition imposed he was denied the right to cross examine his co-defendants who had given damaging testimony against him.
Article 2, Section 14, of our constitution provides that a defendant has the right to be confronted with the witnesses against him, and this means that he not only has the right to look upon such witnesses but to cross examine them. Tate v. Smith, 86 Ala. 33, 5 So. 575; Wray v. State, 154 Ala. 36, 45 So. 697, 15 L.R.A.,N.S., 493, 129 Am.St.Rep., 18, 16 Ann.Cas. 362. While the extent of the cross examination is largely within the discretion of the trial court it is, nevertheless, a valuable right and it cannot be so restricted as to wholly deprive a party of the opportunity to test the credibility of a witness. State v. Talamante, 50 N.M. 6, 165 P.2d 812. See, also, State v. Mannion, 19 Utah 505, 57 P. 542, 45 L.R.A. 638, 75 Am.St.Rep. 753. Where two or more persons are informed against or indicted jointly, and one takes the stand in his own behalf and gives testimony clearly incriminating the other, the lattermay cross examine him. State v. Crooker, 123 Me. 310, 122 A. 865, 33 A.L.R. 821, and the annotation following at page 826.
In addition to being denied the right to cross examine his co-defendants who had testified against him, Martin was also denied the right to make any objections to questions asked unless he would withdraw his announcement that he had rested.
Webster's New International Dictionary, 2nd. Ed. p. 2124,...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
State v. McClaugherty
...one or three weeks prior to the July 25, 2003, hearing. {60} The State rested its case on May 6. See generally State v. Martin, 53 N.M. 413, 417, 209 P.2d 525, 528 (1949) ("Webster's New International Dictionary, 2nd. Ed. p. 2124, defines `rest' in law as follows: `In practice, to bring to ......
-
State v. Turnbow
...1075. Turnbow was allowed the full right of cross-examination of Carter under his constitutional right of confrontation. State v. Martin, 1949, 53 N.M. 413, 209 P.2d 525. After the direct examination of James Turnbow wherein he described the injury he had received by electric shock in 1954,......
-
State v. Myers
...that the defendant has the right to cross-examine and confront the witnesses against him. N.M. Const. Art. II, § 14; State v. Martin, 53 N.M. 413, 209 P.2d 525 (1949). A lay witness, not an expert, may testify generally as to what he observes. This capacity extends into those fields general......
-
Gallegos v. People
...was no People's witness to be further cross-examined. See Rustin v. Prudential Ins. Co., 27 Ohio App. 466, 161 N.E. 561; State v. Martin, 53 N.M. 413, 209 P.2d 525; United States v. Ritchie, 3 Cir., 128 F.2d Ordinarily, cross-examination of a witness for the People should be made before tha......