U.S. v. Jones
| Citation | 508 F.2d 1271 |
| Decision Date | 28 April 1975 |
| Docket Number | No. 73-2220,73-2220 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. James Ellsworth JONES, Appellant. |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (4th Circuit) |
Glenn M. Hodge, Harrisonburg, Va. (W. W. Wharton, Harrisonburg, Va. (Court-appointed counsel), and Wharton, Aldhizer & Weaver, Harrisonburg, Va., on brief), for appellant.
Leigh B. Hanes, Jr., U.S. Atty. (Ronald D. Hodges, Asst. U.S. Atty., on brief), for appellee.
Before BRYAN, Senior Circuit Judge, and CRAVEN and FIELD, Circuit judges.
Prosecuted for kidnaping as it is condemned in 18 U.S.C. 1201, James Ellsworth Jones was returned guilty by a jury and sentenced to life imprisonment. The judgment will be affirmed.
His defense at trial and here is twofold: (a) that due to amnesia he was so mentally incompetent as to be unable to assist in his own defense, and (b) the evidence did not establish, beyond a reasonable doubt, the indictment crime: that he unlawfully abducted Leland Norris Davenport and willfully transported him while alive across the State lines. The first contention is altogether overridden by the contrary finding of the District Judge in a procedurally correct inquisition and upon clear and convincing testimony. See18 U.S.C. 4244. As to both the seizure and interstate removal the evidence, although wholly circumstantial, was substantial and plenteously adequate to allow the jury to say he was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
The statute's now pertinent parts are these:
'1201. Kidnaping
(a) Whoever unlawfully seizes, confines, inveigles, decoys, kidnaps, abducts, or carries away and holds for ransom or reward or otherwise any person, . . . when:
(1) the person is willfully transported in interstate . . . commerce shall be punished by imprisonment for any term of years or for life.
(b) With respect to subsection (a)(1), above, the failure to release the victim within twenty-four hours after he shall have been unlawfully seized, confined, inveigled, decoyed, kidnaped, abducted, or carried away shall create a rebuttable presumption that such person has been transported in interstate . . . commerce.'
Leland Norris Davenport was a young employee of a filling station at Mint Springs, just off Highway I-81, near Staunton, Virginia. Murdered, he was found on May 25, 1972 lying in a ditch alongside this roadway and within West Virginia. Measured along this route, the point is more than 120 miles northwardly from Mint Springs; it was near Martinsburg, West Virginia. The evidence teems with proof that the murder was the work of Jones. However, that is not this case, for he was not accused of homicide.
The crucial questions are (1) whether Jones seized Davenport in Virginia and willfully transported him into West Virginia, and (2) if so, whether Davenport was alive when so transported. Obviously, even if Jones did carry him into West Virginia, still if Davenport was dead when he left Virginia, Jones could not be held guilty of Federal Kidnaping. On the other hand, if Davenport was abducted by Jones, then the statute prima facie presumed that he was transported interstate, for he was not released within 24 hours. 18 U.S.C. 1201(b). Appellant maintains that the Government failed to show that Davenport was alive when taken into West Virginia, and hence Jones cannot be convicted as indicted under 18 U.S.C. 1201(a).
Davenport was the only attendant on duty at the filling station on the night of May 24-25, 1972. He was last seen alive about 1:45 o'clock, A.M. on May 25, 1972 when a patron stopped there and talked with him. Soon afterwards another customer came to the station, looked around for the one in charge but could find nobody there. Inside, the place was in disarray. The telephone receiver was dangling off the hook. On the floor was Davenport's cap, a credit card clipboard and, near the phone, a scrap of paper on which Davenport had written what looked to be a computation of a tire price. The cash register was open, with coins only in it, although the station owner had left about $150.00 of paper currency in it before leaving for the evening.
Just after midnight a small, foreign car had been seen in a bay area outside the station, jacked up as if undergoing repairs. A used tire was on the ground nearby, while a new one of the same design had been taken from the rack. Both tires were of the Volkswagen type. Moreover, the price of that tire was the same as that which Davenport had written on the piece of paper found in the station.
The telephone operator at Staunton had received a request from Davenport, whom she knew, about two o'clock A.M., to place a call for him to a number he gave as that of the BankAmericard agency used by the station to verify credit cards. Unsuccessful in reaching the number, the operator rang the station back but obtained no response. Her equipment signaled that the station's receiver was off the hook.
Just before five o'clock the same morning, a West Virginia State Patrol driver going northwardly on I-81 saw a Volkswagen headed in the same direction but stopped on the shoulder of the righthand lane with no lights burning. This location was estimated as 1.4 miles north of the West Virginia-Virginia (east-west) line, which is 100 miles, more or less, north of Mint Springs. Only one person was seen at the small car.
An hour later, about six o'clock, the same patroller stopped on I-81 to assist a man then pushing a Volkswagen with its lights off, northward along the right edge of the road. This was approximately 17 miles north of the Virginia line. He explained his predicament as lack of oil. In the patrol car the two drove to a service station, returning together with oil. But the Volkswagen could not be started. At his request the State Trooper called a wrecking vehicle which arrived in about 20 minutes.
During the wait the two men sat in the State car. Jones said he wanted to dispose of the Volkswagen at the nearest junk yard. The patroller saw oil spots on the road. He saw, too, blood on the 'back part' and 'on the side' of the passenger's seat, on the running board on the passenger's side, and 'a little bit on the side of his head up there . . . right about his right ear'. The Volkswagen driver was identified as the appellant Jones. When the wrecker arrived Jones rode with him, and the patroller left them both.
The Volkswagen was hauled to Martinsburg. When paying the wrecker Jones displayed a roll of paper money which appeared to be about $150 in amount. He transferred his 'things'-- a pile of clothes and two suitcases in the back seat-- into a taxicab, which he took immediately, saying he wished to go to New York. He continued in the taxi as far as Hagerstown, Maryland where, he was told, he could obtain an earlier bus for New York than was available in Martinsburg. Finally, he had the taxi take him to Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania where it dropped him.
After leaving Jones with the taxi, the wrecker parked the Volkswagen in front of his father's residence in Martinsburg. The wrecker went back to his place of employment a few minutes after eight o'clock A.M. and was absent...
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...United States, 412 U.S. 837, 845-46, nn. 9-11, 93 S.Ct. 2357, 37 L.Ed.2d 380 (1973), and cases there cited. See also United States v. Jones, 508 F.2d 1271 (4th Cir. 1975), cert. denied, 421 U.S. 950, 95 S.Ct. 1684, 44 L.Ed.2d Defendant's contention that the evidence was insufficient to fix ......
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