State v. Price
| Decision Date | 22 December 1916 |
| Docket Number | 19,951 - (10) |
| Citation | 160 N.W. 677,135 Minn. 159 |
| Parties | STATE v. FRED T. PRICE |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Defendant and Charles D. Etchison were indicted by the grand jury for the crime of murder in the first degree. Defendant demanded a separate trial, which was granted, and he was tried in the district court for Hennepin county before Fish J., and a jury which found him guilty as charged in the indictment. From an order denying his motion for a new trial defendant appealed. Affirmed.
Homicide -- conviction sustained by evidence.
1. The evidence is sufficient to sustain the verdict of guilty.
Criminal law -- what constitutes an accomplice.
2. The instruction of the trial court in defining an accomplice was not prejudicial. To make a witness an accomplice, it must appear that a crime has been committed, that the person on trial committed the crime, either as principal or as accessory, and that the witness cooperated with, aided or assisted the person on trial in the commission of that crime either as principal or accessory.
Refusal of request to charge.
3. The request to charge that the witness Etchison was, as a matter of law, an accomplice was correctly refused.
Charge to jury.
4. The charge of the court as to the facts which must be proven before the jury could find that Etchison was an accomplice was, in view of the circumstances, without error.
Case followed.
5. This case is within the doctrine of State v. Nelson, 91 Minn. 143, that "new trials in criminal cases should be granted only where the substantial rights of the accused have been so violated as to make it reasonably clear that a fair trial was not had."
Evidence of medical experts.
6. The cause of decedent's death, how the wound was inflicted, whether it was caused by the fall or by a blow, were proper questions for expert testimony. The court did not abuse its discretion in allowing the doctors who were present at the autopsy to testify to these facts.
Cross-examination by prosecutor.
7. It was not error for the court to allow the prosecuting attorney searchingly to cross-examine the defendant as to the circumstances of an assault, which defendant on his direct examination had testified that he had been convicted of, even though such inquiry prejudiced defendant.
Cross-examination by prosecutor.
8. On cross-examining the defendant, the state's attorney touched upon matters concerning defendant's past life. The prosecuting attorney's conduct, although not commendable, did not deprive defendant of a fair trial.
Defendant given a fair trial.
9. Neither the address of the prosecuting attorney to the jury, nor the charge of the court relative to the weight to be given by the jury to the remarks of the respective counsel, prevented defendant from having a fair trial.
Charles F. Kelly and L. O. Rue, for appellant.
Lyndon A. Smith, Attorney General, John M. Rees, County Attorney, and George W. Armstrong, Assistant County Attorney, for respondent.
Defendant and Charles D. Etchison were indicted by the grand jury of Hennepin county for murder in the first degree for the killing of the wife of defendant, Mary Fridley Price. Price's separate trial resulted in a verdict of guilty of the crime charged. He appeals from an order denying his motion for a new trial.
There is evidence in the record sufficient to warrant the jury in finding the following facts: Mary Fridley Price died on November 28, 1914, from a wound received by her on that day. The cause of death was a crushing of the left side of the skull, from which injury she died within a short time after it was inflicted.
On the day mentioned, at about 6 o'clock p.m. Mrs. Price, her husband Fred T. Price, and Charles D. Etchison were driving towards St. Paul along the river drive in Minneapolis on the east bank of the Mississippi river. The motor car which they occupied was stopped at the side of the road near the top of the bluff which forms the river bank at that place. Defendant and Etchison got out, ostensibly to examine the motor. Mrs. Price also got out of the car and in some way fell over the bluff, falling a distance of more than 35 feet. She was found by defendant and Etchison lying near the river not far from the bottom of the bluff. When found she was still living. The injury from which she died was not the result of her fall from the cliff, but of the independent act of either defendant or Etchison, or both. There were no other marks or bruises or any indications of injury found on her person. A post-mortem, made a year afterwards, negatived any injury other than the one to the skull, which was crushed and broken over an area 5 1/4 inches by 4 inches, the longest diameter being from a point above the left eye backwards, the shortest being from a point near the left ear upwards. The skull, which is in evidence, is broken clear across the top, and there is a large triangular fracture on the right side. Within the roughly oval space on the left side of the skull the bone is fractured into 12 pieces, large and small. This condition is due to external force, from a blow with a blunt instrument of approximately the size of the injury.
When Mrs. Price was found, Etchison immediately went back to the top of the bluff and in a short time returned, accompanied by several other men who assisted in carrying her up to the road. An ambulance having arrived, she was taken to a hospital. She was dead when the ambulance arrived at the hospital.
Defendant gave a version of the "accident" shortly after her death. He stated that he was driving his car and when they got to this place the engine was "missing." He stopped, and while he and Etchison were looking for the trouble, Mrs. Price got out of the car to exercise a little dog belonging to her. Shortly afterwards he heard her call. Not seeing her, he and Etchison went down to the bottom of the bluff, where they found her. He sent Etchison to get help, while he himself remained with her. He repeated this statement several days afterwards.
Before the ambulance arrived, Etchison got into defendant's car and drove off to Fridley to get Mrs. Price's sister, Mrs. Dye. The sister had been notified by telephone and she and her husband were on their way when they met Etchison, who brought them to the hospital, whither defendant had accompanied his wife. After some time spent at the hospital, defendant returned to Fridley with Mr. and Mrs. Dye and Etchison, coming back to Minneapolis about midnight.
Many facts were developed tending to show motives for the commission of this crime by Price. Mrs. Price had no children. She owned property exceeding $20,000 in value. About $10,000 in railroad bonds had been given to her by her father the day before her death. She had considerable money on deposit in two banks. Defendant was her sole heir at law. He tried to get some of the money from the banks for his personal use a few days after Mrs. Price's funeral and before he was appointed administrator of her estate. On December 8, 1914, he succeeded in getting $500. After he was appointed administrator he gave Etchison sums of money aggregating several thousand dollars. He also gave Etchison a note for $7,000.
He had been leading a double life. He was infatuated with a paramour, to whom he advanced money and with whom he had been intimate for many months during his wife's lifetime. Shortly after the funeral he procured a room in a hotel under an assumed name and there lived with this woman, registering her as his wife.
Many circumstances, such as the disappearance of a diamond from Mrs. Price's ring, the torn right-hand glove, the broken shoe heel, the halting and unsatisfactory explanations made by Price to Mr. Dye, his brother-in-law, about the ring, the diamond and the glove, and a large number of others, were proved on the trial. They were matters no one of which was of much importance in itself, but when taken together, of great significance and probative force. Defendant's adventures in matrimony seem to have been unfortunate. Mary was his third wife. When he first met her he had been twice married and twice divorced. The married life of defendant and his third wife was not at all times harmonious.
All the above facts were proven by the testimony of witnesses other than Etchison.
Etchison testified that defendant pushed his wife over the edge of the bluff; that they heard her moaning; that defendant threw the dog over the cliff; that with Price he went down to where Mrs. Price was lying; that she was still living; that defendant sent him to get help; that when he had turned away on his errand he heard a dull sound like a blow, and that later the same evening defendant told him that he regretted having had to hit his wife on the head with a stone. He also testified to conversations had previous to that time, in which defendant told Etchison that he intended to kill Mrs. Price and have it appear that her death was the result of an accident.
No good purpose can be accomplished by setting forth the relations, transactions and conversations between this defendant and Etchison during their long acquaintance, their money difficulties, their financial operations, their rare successes and frequent failures. The story told by Etchison seems to show that Price was able to command Etchison's services at any time, and that the latter was dominated to some extent by the strong will and personality of the former.
The errors assigned are principally that the verdict is not justified by the evidence; that the court erred in certain instructions to the jury; that the court erred in failing to give certain instructions; that error was committed on the trial in the admission of evidence; that error was...
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