State v. McGregor

• Decision Date: 28 January 1955
• Docket Number: No. 9268,9268
• Citation: 82 R.I. 437,111 A.2d 231
• Parties: STATE v. Harold C. McGREGOR. Ex.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

Page 231

111 A.2d 231

82 R.I. 437

STATE v. Harold C. McGREGOR.

Ex. No. 9268.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

Jan. 28, 1955.

William E. Powers, Atty. Gen., Francis J. Fazzano, Ass't Atty. Gen., for State.

Robert T. Flynn, Providence, for defendant.

FLYNN, Chief Justice.

This indictment charges the defendant with committing murder in first degree. The case was tried in the superior court before a jury who returned a verdict of guilty as charged. Thereafter the trial justice denied the defendant's motion for a new trial and the case is here on a bill of exceptions to that decision and to other evidentiary rulings made during the course of the trial.

Apart from the medical testimony and opinions of expert witnesses, the material and relevant facts are substantially undisputed. The defendant, who was separated but not divorced from his wife, had been living for six to eight years intimately with another woman, who operated a rooming house. The latter had informed him that she intended to break up their relationship and to accept the offer of a legitimate marriage presently proposed by another man. On Sunday, September 5, 1948, defendant discussed with her certain financial and other benefits which she would derive from such a marriage and they agreed it would be better if in the circumstances he moved from the house.

There was further discussion by them that same night, which defendant spent with her in a cabin in Plainville, Massachusetts. They came back Monday and that night he left her house and did not return. On Tuesday morning, September 7, 1948, he telephoned to her to inquire as to the progress of the proposed marriage, and on Wednesday morning in another telephone conversation he asked her to meet him that day to discuss a letter he had previously mailed to her concerning his personal business and financial status. Accordingly an appointment was made to meet her at 3 p. m.

Just before keeping such appointment he telephoned, between 1:30 and 1:45 p.m., to an undertaker with whom he had been well acquainted for eighteen or twenty years. He first inquired for the health of the undertaker's wife, who had been hospitalized. He then asked for information concerning the location of a human heart, giving as the reason for such inquiry that he wanted to settle a small wager of 50 cents as to its exact location. This information was given by the undertaker to the defendant, who then inquired as to whether a woman's heart was located in the same part of the anatomy as that of a man. Upon receipt of an answer that both were similarly located he went to his automobile and proceeded to drive it to keep the above-mentioned appointment. Prior thereto, however, at some time during that day he also had taken a large ice pick from his office and placed it in the automobile.

He met the woman shortly before 3 p.m. on Broad street in the city of Providence and, according to him, drove generally in the direction of Beach Pond in this state. They had gone there for picnics at other times and apparently he though they might discuss their affairs with more privacy than if they stopped on the street to talk. However, when defendant's automobile was going along Cranston street in the city of Cranston about 3 p.m. he suddenly grabbed the ice pick and stabbed the woman in the chest near the heart. The car, after traveling in an erratic course, came to a stop near a gasoline station at Pavilion avenue. The woman jumped out, screaming that she had been stabbed. The ice pick was either projecting from her chest or had just been removed by her. At any rate she handed it to one of the gasoline station attendants, who helped to support her from falling.

At the time, a police officer on duty happened to be near. He had observed the erratic course of the car and saw the woman as she jumped out and handed the ice pick to the attendant. He also heard her state that she had been stabbed by the man in the car. Immediately after she had jumped from the car the defendant was heard by one of the gasoline station attendants to say: 'Officer pull me in, I just stabbed a woman.' As the officer went to defendant's automobile to take him into custody, two other police officers were passing in a patrol car and stopped to investigate. When defendant was actually in custody, he complained to the officer: 'Why don't you let me go so I can kill myself.'

The woman was taken directly to a hospital in Providence for treatment. Later that day defendant was brought to the hospital where he was identified by her. She then asked him why he had done such a thing, and his reply was in effect that he had done it because he loved her. Thereafter, within a few hours of the assault, the woman died at the hospital from the wounds inflicted by defendant during the attack.

Subsequently that evening defendant was questioned further at police headquarters. A statement containing questions by the police and the answers thereto as given by defendant was typewritten. After reading it and making a certain correction, which he initialed, and personally writing in his answer to the last question, the statement was signed by defendant on September 8, 1948, in the presence of three police officers. The last question in the statement is whether it was true and given of his own free will, without fear or promise on the part of the police, to which he answered in his own handwriting: 'Yes.' The statement, which corroborated in further detail the facts relevant to defendant's history, motive, plan and conduct just before and at the time of the fatal assault, was introduced without objection as defendant's confession.

On September 9 defendant in due course was transferred to the Providence county jail to await trial. Thereafter, on the morning of September 17, he fell or jumped from a third tier cell in an attempt, as he later claimed, to commit suicide in accordance with part of his plan to do away with himself after killing the woman. As a result of this incident he was examined for mental disorder or illness. Thereupon a petition of the welfare department supported by the certificates of two doctors was filed and he was transferred in accordance with law to the state hospital for the criminally insane by order of a justice of the superior court September 23, 1948. There he received medical treatment for shock and fractures of a lumbar vertebra and certain bones of the leg as well as treatment for such mental condition as was found to exist at that time.

On December 14 of that year a clinic was held at which defendant was observed and studied further by many of the staff doctors at the state hospital for mental diseases. It was determined that, although defendant had exhibited some symptoms of a possible psychopathic personality, he was not then suffering from any mental disorder or disease that would warrant his further confinement at the hospital. However, he remained there until June 25, 1949, when it was officially and formally determined that he had recovered mentally to the extent that he was competent to stand trial and that it was safe to return him from the state hospital for mental diseases to the jail. Accordingly he was then returned and was later tried and convicted on the instant indictment.

The above is a brief and general summary of the salient facts, none of which is disputed by defendant. His defense was based solely on a special plea that he was insane at the time of the commission of the fatal assault. Evidence was presented on this issue by the defendant and by the state through medical testimony and expert witnesses.

It will serve no purpose to attempt to state in detail the complicated and at times confusing testimony and opinions of the different doctors, psychiatrists and neurologists. Suffice it to say, without great refinement, that the medical experts appearing for defendant testified in substance that he was probably suffering from a schizophrenic disorder for some years; that he had been suffering a gradual and progressive deterioration of the brain from disease for at least seven years; and that the feeling that he was losing the woman whom he said he had hoped to marry, coupled with his business and financial depression, had left him desperate and caused a sudden terrific emotional conflict which subjected him to an irresistible impulse, thus rendering him for the moment irresponsible for his act.

In other words, they conceded that at the time he may have known the difference between right and wrong as well as the nature, quality and consequences of the act which he was perpetrating, and that he knew he should not have done it; but according to some of them he was unable, because of this emotional upset, to choose between the alternatives of right and wrong doing. Therefore in their opinion defendant, being unable to resist such emotional impulse and to make a choice, was insane at the time of the act.

On the other hand the state presented several doctors who were in attendance at the state hospital for mental diseases, some of whom had examined defendant at the time of admission and others who had either examined him on other occasions or had been present at clinics where he was observed while his mental health was under investigation and consideration. These medical witnesses and experts were of the opinion in general that defendant was not insane on September 8, 1948, when he stabbed his woman companion; that at that time he was not suffering from a defect of reasoning due to disease of the mind so as to render him incapable of distinguishing between right and wrong and of knowing the nature and quality of his acts; and that there was no sufficient basis in his history, actual mental condition or conduct to warrant a conclusion that on September 8, 1948, he was deprived by any mental disease or disorder of his ability to reason and to know the difference between right and wrong, as well as the nature, quality and...