Sullivan v. People
| Decision Date | 21 June 1943 |
| Docket Number | 15231. |
| Citation | 139 P.2d 876,111 Colo. 205 |
| Parties | SULLIVAN v. PEOPLE. |
| Court | Colorado Supreme Court |
Rehearing Denied July 12, 1943.
Error to District Court, El Paso County; John M. Meikle, Judge.
John Sullivan was convicted of murder in the first degree, and he brings error.
Affirmed.
J Nelson Truitt, of Denver, for plaintiff in error.
Gail L Ireland, Atty. Gen., H. Lawrence Hinkley, Depty. Atty. Gen and James S. Henderson, Asst. Atty. Gen., for defendant in error.
Plaintiff in error, hereinafter referred to as defendant, was tried in March, 1942, for the murder of Carrie W. Culbertson in January preceding.
The verdict was 'guilty' in the first degree and the penalty thereby fixed at death. Sentence was pronounced accordingly and to review that judgment this writ is prosecuted. Of the twelve assignments but six are relied upon. All however may properly be considered under the single question--Should the jury have been permitted to conclude from the evidence that defendant was subject to the extreme penalty?
Defendant's plea was not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity. There was no evidence to support a finding of insanity. All of it, for both prosecution and defense, expert and lay, was to the contrary. The experts were, however, practically unanimous in saying that defendant's intellect was below 'the average normal level;' that he was 'of inferior intelligence' and 'mentally' below eighteen years of age. This has nothing to do with 'age' as used in the statute. It reads: '* * * No person shall suffer the death penalty who, at the time of conviction, was under the age of eighteen (18) years * * *.' Sec. 32, chap. 48, '35 C.S.A. Had the Legislature intended 'mental age' it would have used no such equivocal language. That contingency was well cared for by leaving the question of punishment, life imprisonment or death, to the discretion of the jurors. We have no reason to believe that they abused that discretion, but if so power to correct it is lodged elsewhere. We are powerless to write 'mental' into the statute.
Counsel for defendant admits, and properly so, that there 'is little of error' in this record, that 'the verdict of guilty was justified,' and that all the witnesses testified 'defendant was probably legally sane.'
Defendant did not take the stand. Practically the whole of the state's case was his oral confession detailed on the stand by the officers to whom it was made. It was clearly voluntary, corresponds with all other evidence in the case, and is wholly undisputed. From it we learn that defendant was 42 years old; that he went in the evening to the home of the deceased to deliver a letter; this done, he asked for some tools he had left there; that while getting them in her basement, deceased stooped over and defendant, using a knife he had picked up there, stabbed her in the back; that he then went home and retired; that early next morning he returned to the basement of the Culbertson residence; that he carried and...
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...supported by competent evidence, the jurors are the final arbiters and their conclusion cannot be disturbed on review. Sullivan v. People, 111 Colo. 205, 139 P.2d 876; Agnes v. People, 104 Colo. 527, 93 P.2d 891; Maestas v. People, II--THE SELF-DEFENSE INSTRUCTION Defendant assigns the givi......
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Bell v. People, 23082
...sentence of death shall be executed where, as her, stays of execution have been granted, see C.R.S.1963, 39--7--24. Also Sullivan v. People, 111 Colo. 205, 139 P.2d 876 and Mora v. People, 19 Colo. 255, 35 P. The judgment is affirmed. ...
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