Trabue v. Commonwealth

• Decision Date: 19 February 1902
• Parties: TRABUE v. COMMONWEALTH. [1]
• Court: Kentucky Court of Appeals

66 S.W. 718

TRABUE v. COMMONWEALTH. ^[1]

Court of Appeals of Kentucky.

February 19, 1902

Appeal from circuit court, Jefferson county, criminal division.

"Not to be officially reported."

Julia Trabue was convicted of murder, and she appeals. Reversed.

H. T Wilson, for appellant.

Morrison Breckinridge and R. J. Breckinridge, for the Commonwealth.

BURNAM J.

The appellant, Julia Trabue, was indicted by the grand jury of Jefferson county in April, 1901, for the murder of Ed Evans and a trial before a jury in the following month resulted in a verdict finding her guilty of murder, and inflicting the death penalty. A motion for a new trial was overruled, and judgment rendered on the verdict. An appeal has been taken to this court, and a reversal of the judgment asked by the appellant on several grounds: First, because of the failure of the trial court to give to the jury an instruction based upon the theory that the killing was in sudden heat and passion and without malice; second, because of erroneous rulings of the court in excluding important testimony material to her defense.

The testimony of Gertrude Evans, a sister of the deceased, and the chief witness for the commonwealth, is to the effect that she occupied two rooms upstairs in a double tenement house at the corner of Thirteenth and Congress streets, in the city of Louisville; that a friend of hers (Ardinia Garnett) had spent the day with her; that about 3 o'clock in the afternoon her brother, Edwin Evans, came to her room, and remained there with her and her visitor until he was stabbed by the appellant, at about 7 o'clock in the evening. She says that she heard appellant coming up the stairs, and that she walked out of the lighted room where they were, to the top of the steps, to meet her; that she did not recognize appellant and asked her if it was Julia or Ollie; that appellant did not respond until she got in front of the door opening into the lighted room, where her brother was; she then answered "It is Julia," and, addressing her brother, said to him, "Come on;" that he responded, "I am coming just as soon as George comes;" that she answered, with an oath, "Come on now," walked up to him, drew a knife from under her cloak, and stabbed him in the breast, and started to do so again, when she ran up and caught the knife; that, in the struggle that followed, the deceased ran to the steps, and she after him, and that appellant was immediately behind her; that, when she got to the top of the steps, appellant pushed her against the deceased, who was lower down on the steps, knocking him down. And the statements of this witness are substantially corroborated by Ardinia Garnett. The defendant testified that she had been living with the deceased for about five years, but was not married to him; that, in the afternoon of the day on which he was killed, he left home, saying that he was going to the brickyard in Shippingport; that a short time before the trouble she met John Ford, a brother-in-law of the deceased, on his coal wagon, and that he said to her: "Ed says for you to come to Gertie Evans' house, at the corner of Thirteenth and Congress, right away; that he wants you. Get your hat, and I will take you on the wagon;" that she went into the house, put on her hat, and went with him, and that he took her to Thirteenth and Congress and showed her the house; that she had never been there before; that she inquired for the quarters of Gertie Evans, and was directed to go upstairs; that, when she came to the top of the stairs, Gertie Evans was standing there in the dark; that she said, "What brought you here?" that she responded, "Ed sent for me. What is the matter with him?" that Gertie answered, "Ed never...