State v. Wise
| Citation | 115 A.2d 62,19 N.J. 59 |
| Decision Date | 20 June 1955 |
| Docket Number | No. A--150,A--150 |
| Parties | The STATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Albert WISE, Harry Wise and Alfred Stokes, Defendants-Appellants. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court (New Jersey) |
Albert L. Kessler, Elizabeth, argued the cause for appellant Albert wise.
Jacob R. Mantel, Summit, argued the cause for appellant Harry Wise (Allen Kaufman, Elizabeth, on the brief).
Otto E. Adolph, Elizabeth, argued the cause for appellant Alfred Stokes (Frederick C. Vonhof, Newark, on the brief).
H. Russell Morss, Jr., Prosecutor of Union County, Elizabeth, argued the cause for the State (Hyman Isaac, Assistant Prosecutor, Elizabeth).
The opinion of the court was delivered by
These three defendants, severally admitting their guilt of the murder charge upon which they were tried, having been convicted of first-degree murder without a recommendation by the jury, appeal the judgment of death rendered against them, contending they were denied a fair trial and were prejudiced by legal error committed requiring a reversal.
Each defendant was represented by separate court-assigned counsel who for their respective clients submitted briefs and argued the cause before us.
The factual situation, although not complicated nor in dispute in many instances, will be fully set forth so its relationship to the legal issues presented can more easily and effectively be visualized.
In the early morning of February 12, 1954, Albert Wise left his home at 234 9th Avenue, Roselle, New Jersey, and drove his Mercury sedan to the home of Alfred Stokes, on Union Street in the City of Elizabeth. Stokes joined him in the car, and together they proceeded to Roselle to the home of Albert Wise's mother, with whom Albert's brother, Harry Wise, was living. There they picked up Harry, and the three of them drove to the Tuscan Dairy in Union Township, arriving there at about 10 A.M. Albert Wise, the leader of the trio, had worked at the dairy some eight years earlier, but the purpose of their visit on this occasion was to 'case' the set-up in contemplation of a later robbery.
Their mission completed, they returned to the Wise family home in Roselle, went to Harry's room and then decided to go back and rob the dairy. Shortly thereafter, they again left the house and, with Albert at the wheel, retraced their earlier route to the Tuscan Dairy. On the way, they stopped once to remove the rear license plate from the Mercury. During the ride, Albert gave Harry and old .32 cal. revolver, to Alfred Stokes he gave a new .32 cal. Harrington and Richardson revolver, serial No. 103759, and for himself he kept a nickel-plated .22. He had obtained the guns earlier that morning from a field in back of his mother's house where he had them hidden.
Thus armed, they arrived at the Tuscan Dairy and parked the Mercury on the southern side of Union Avenue, on the opposite side of the street from the dairy facing the Garden State Parkway. They got out of the car, walked across the street and entered the dairy grounds through a gap in the fence. From there they proceeded to the business office of the dairy, which they entered with revolvers drawn.
Once inside, Albert curtly announced: 'This is a hold-up,' and ordered the employees who were working there to line up against the wall, hands over their heads. Stokes stood guard over them, and Harry Wise was stationed in the hallway just outside the main office. Albert went directly to the cashier's room, where the safe was located, emptying its contents, some $1,400 and a bunch of keys, into the pockets of his grey tweed coat. He told Stokes to lock the employees he was guarding in a closet and in a bathroom, which Stokes did, taking a wallet containing about $90 in bills and some old coins from one of them, Altman, as he did so. Albert attempted to cut the cable connections to the switchboard, and while this was going on, another employee of the dairy, Jose Gallegos, entered the building looking for his mail. He started to leave but was spotted by Harry Wise, who brought him back into the office and locked him in a closet.
The three defendants then ran out of the office building, Harry in the lead, and were making their way toward the gap in the fence by which they had entered when Sergeant Clinton E. Bond, of the Union Township Police, drove by on Union Avenue in a police patrol car. At the time, Bond was on routine patrol duty but apparently his suspicions were aroused by the sight of the three men running along the fence inside the dairy grounds. He stopped his car momentarily and then drove off, going rapidly down Union Avenue toward the main entrance leading into the Tuscan Dairy grounds. Albert, Harry and Alfred, having observed this movement of the patrol car, abandoned their escape route and fled north through the dairy grounds, on which several large barns were located. As they rounded the rear of barn No. 1, they encountered Sergeant Bond, who had in the meanwhile driven his patrol car from the main entrance north between the barns.
Sergeant Bond ordered the men to approach the car, and as they did so, he may have noted the revolver which Harry Wise still had in his hand. Bond opened the door of the patrol car, started to get out, but as he did so Harry Wise grabbed him by the rear of the coat and together with Albert began assaulting him. While struggling with them, Bond attempted to draw his revolver from its holster and Stokes, who was standing but three feet away, shot him. Although wounded, Bond continued to struggle with Albert and Harry, and Stokes again fired at close range.
As Sergeant Bond started to sink toward the ground, Harry Wise, using the butt of his revolver as a club, viciously beat him about the face and head. Albert grabbed the sergeant's revolver from its holster and as he did so, the gun discharged, the bullet penetrating the sergeant's trousers but not entering his body. An autopsy subsequently performed disclosed the cause of death to be a 'bullet wound in the chest with a right and left hemothorax.' Two bullets were found, one in the chest cavity and the other in the sergeant's undertclothing. Both bullets were identified as having been fired from the revolver used by Alfred Stokes.
With Bond thus disposed of, Stokes jumped behind the wheel of the police car and Albert and Harry entered from the other side. They drove rapidly out the main entrance of the dairy grounds and stopped opposite the place where Albert's Mercury was parked. There they abandoned the patrol car, entered the Mercury, and with Albert at the wheel, made their get-away.
They went through Irvington into Newark, where they stopped at Albert's girl friend's apartment to get a pair of shoes. They then proceeded to the Pulaski Sky-way, crossed the Hudson River at the Holland Tunnel and drove to the home of Lucille Wilbon in Springfield, Massachusetts, where Albert and Harry's brother, Joseph Wise, was staying.
While on their way to Massachusetts, they stopped at a service station to purchase a tire. Stokes went around the rear of the service station and threw the gun which he had used to kill Sergeant Bond into the woods, after first wiping it clean of fingerprints. It was subsequently recovered by the police, and ballistics experts testified that it was the murder weapon.
The three men arrived at the Wilbon home in Springfield at about 5 P.M. in the evening of February 21, 1954. There they met Joseph Wise and spent the night with him at the Wilbon house. Sometime during the evening, they split up the haul, Harry and Stokes each getting about $400 and Albert retaining the balance. They told Joseph Wise what had happened and gave him the remaining three revolvers, the old .32, the .22 and Sergeant Bond's .38, to dispose of. All of these guns were later recovered by the police.
The following day, the defendants, together with Joseph Wise, went to visit Ethel Wilson, a sister of the Wises, who was also living in Springfield. There they heard a radio broadcast reporting the fatal shooting of Bond. Later that night, the three of them and Joseph Wise and Lucille Wilbon drove to New York. Harry Wise and Stokes got out at Penn Station, and Albert returned to Springfield with Joseph and Lucille.
The next day, Sunday, Albert received a telephone call from Harry, who had returned to Roselle, advising him the police were looking for him. Albert decided to return to New Jersey, and that night he started back in the Mercury. While in Connecticut, his car was observed by a Connecticut state policeman, resulting in hi being stopped and taken into custody.
On February 18, 1954 Harry Wise was arrested at his home in Roselle. Stokes, in the meanwhile, had fled to Farmville, Virginia, and was captured there on February 21, 1954. Point I.
Was there error in denying the defendants' motion for a change of venue?
Neither the defendants' argument nor brief correctly outlines the procedural steps taken and the rulings made on the application for a change of venue.
Counsel in his brief, amongst other things, claims: 'The published circumstances surrounding the crimes were repulsive to the community's conscience,' and 'Reports of the murder and subsequent apprehension of the defendants appeared daily in bold headlines in the press.' An editorial in the newspaper with the largest circulation in the county deplored the crime and assumed the guilt of the defendants.' Grand jury resolutions and resolutions of the Township of Union praising those responsible for the apprehension of the defendants and assuming their guilt were published in the press.' 'Special precautions had to be taken by the county sheriff to handle the spectators at the trial * * *.' 'The Bond murder had become a household term in Union County.'
These are some of the facts and circumstances impelling counsel to place their cause within the pronouncement made in Shepherd v. State of Florida, 341 U.S. 50,...
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State v. Ravenell
...his third point the defendant urges that his motion for change of venue or foreign jury should have been granted. In State v. Wise, 19 N.J. 59, 115 A.2d 62 (1955), we pointed out that such motion is addressed to the discretion of the trial court and is governed by the following: 'The test i......
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