United States v. Roberts

• Decision Date: 06 November 1963
• Docket Number: No. LR-63-CR-140.,LR-63-CR-140.
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. Raymond Ralph ROBERTS, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Arkansas

223 F. Supp. 49

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. Raymond Ralph ROBERTS, Defendant.

No. LR-63-CR-140.

United States District Court E. D. Arkansas, W. D.

November 6, 1963.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Robert D. Smith, Jr., U. S. Atty., James W. Gallman and W. H. McClellan, Asst. U. S. Attys., Little Rock, Ark., for plaintiff.

John W. Bailey, M. Drew Bowers, Little Rock, Ark., for defendant.

HENLEY, Chief Judge.

On September 12, 1963, the federal grand jury for the Eastern District of Arkansas returned an indictment charging the defendant, Raymond Ralph Roberts, with the murder of Dr. Keith E. Herlocker, a Government employee, in his office in the Veterans Administration Hospital at Fort Roots, North Little Rock, Arkansas, premises admittedly within the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States.¹

Capable counsel were assigned to represent the defendant without charge. Defendant was tried to a jury, and on October 22, 1963, was found guilty of murder in the second degree.² On October 24 the Court, after hearing statements of counsel on both sides and after having given the defendant an opportunity to make a statement in his own behalf, sentenced defendant to life imprisonment, the maximum punishment prescribed for second degree murder.

On October 25 there was filed on behalf of the defendant a motion for a new trial asserting that the verdict of the jury is "contrary to both the law and the evidence," that the Court erred in admitting certain testimony, that the Court erred in failing to declare a mistrial on account of a statement made in the presence of the jury by the Assistant United States Attorney trying the case in the course of the trial, and that the Court erred in overruling a pre-trial motion to suppress evidence. In this memorandum the Court will deal with those contentions in the order mentioned.³

There is little, if any, dispute about the evidentiary facts of the case which may be summarized as follows:

It is a well known fact that the Fort Roots facilities are employed in large measure in the treatment of patients suffering from mental or nervous disorders. Naturally, the hospital is interested in the vocational rehabilitation of patients and maintains a vocational counselling service. Dr. Herlocker, a psychologist, was the head of that service. His office was located in Building 89 on the hospital grounds, and his secretary had an adjoining office, the two offices being connected by a door. In order to enter Dr. Herlocker's office it was not necessary to pass through the secretary's office as there was another door connecting the doctor's office with a hall.

Defendant, a middle aged white man with a long record of military service, was admitted to the hospital early in March 1962. While between his admission and the date of the shooting of Dr. Herlocker defendant spent most of his time in the hospital, part of that time being confined in a locked ward,⁴ he was given weekend passes from time to time which enabled him to visit his wife and child in El Dorado, Arkansas, in which city was the family home. The defendant knew Dr. Herlocker having consulted him in the doctor's professional capacity. Since defendant had been a patient in the hospital for about a year prior to the shooting and had consulted the doctor, it is fairly inferable that he was familiar with the doctor's office and with the means of ingress thereto.

On some date prior to February 28, 1963, defendant had filed a claim for a period of disability and for the payment of disability insurance benefits under the Social Security Act, and it appears that Dr. Herlocker had some connection with this application. While the application was pending, defendant stated to a fellow patient, one Monk, that Dr. Herlocker appeared to think that if a patient could work at tasks in and around the hospital he could make a living outside, and defendant stated also that unless his application should be granted he would kill Dr. Herlocker. Monk attached no particular significance to that statement and did not report it to anyone in authority. On February 28, 1963, Mr. Bayard Taylor of Little Rock, a hearing examiner for the Social Security Administration, filed an opinion denying or recommending the denial of defendant's application. On the same date a copy of this opinion enclosed in a penalty envelope bearing Mr. Taylor's official return address was mailed to defendant at his El Dorado address. In due course of post the opinion would have been delivered at defendant's home in El Dorado on Friday, March 1, 1963.

On March 1 or March 2 defendant received a pass from the hospital and went to El Dorado where he received or found the opinion adverse to his Social Security claim. Defendant returned to the Greater Little Rock area on Sunday, March 3. He made the round trip from North Little Rock to El Dorado in his gray pickup truck.

On the evening of March 3 defendant appeared at the address where Mr. Taylor had once lived and asked for Mr. Taylor. The current occupant of the house, a Mrs. Mack, advised defendant that Taylor had moved and gave defendant Taylor's new address. She was not able to direct defendant to that address, however, and advised him to make inquiry elsewhere. Defendant then departed. Mrs. Mack testified that defendant was friendly and courteous but appeared to be intoxicated.

On the morning of March 4 Dr. Herlocker and his secretary were in their respective offices about 9:00 o'clock. Dr. Herlocker directed his secretary to interview a patient, and then closed the door which connected his office with that of the secretary. In a few moments the secretary heard a noise from the doctor's office, which noise turned out to have been a shot. She rushed into the office and found the doctor in a recumbent position in his chair shot through the head from left to right. The doctor died two days later, and the jury was justified in finding and obviously did find that he died as a result of the gun shot wound just mentioned.

When the secretary entered the doctor's office, no one else was in the room, and the doctor was incapable of speech. However there was found on his desk Hearing Examiner Taylor's envelope in which his opinion had been mailed to the defendant. The opinion was not with the envelope. There was also discovered in the doctor's office the spent bullet which had passed through his head.

A search for the defendant was instituted by local and federal officers, and about two hours later he was apprehended asleep and intoxicated in his pick-up truck which he had parked on the streets of North Little Rock. An immediate search of defendant's person revealed Hearing Examiner Taylor's opinion which has been mentioned. No gun was found on defendant's person or in his truck, and indeed, as far as the evidence shows, the gun with which Dr. Herlocker was shot has never been found.

Defendant was questioned by one or more Federal Bureau of Investigation agents at the North Little Rock police station and professed complete ignorance of the events of the morning prior to his arrest. He did recall returning from El Dorado the previous night, and stated that he had slept in his truck. He admitted receiving the Taylor opinion at El Dorado and identified the envelope which has been described. He was unable to explain how the envelope came to be on Dr. Herlocker's desk at the hospital while at the same time the opinion was in his own possession. Questioned about ownership of a pistol, defendant stated that he had once owned such a weapon, but had sold it about a year before. He denied ownership of a firearm at the time of questioning.

With affairs, in this posture, the federal agents requested the El Dorado Police Department to interview defendant's wife with reference to her husband's ownership of a pistol. Chief of Police Thomas and Police Lieutenant Taylor complied with this request. In their interview with Mrs. Roberts the officers were informed that Roberts did not own a pistol at that time, but that he had owned one previously. Mrs. Roberts stated that her husband disposed of the pistol after he had discharged it in the house; and she advised also that the bullet had lodged in the ceiling.

When this information was relayed to the federal investigating officers, they requested Chief Thomas and Lieutenant Taylor to undertake to recover the bullet which Mrs. Roberts had mentioned so that it might be compared with the bullet with which Dr. Herlocker had been shot.

On March 5 Chief Thomas and Lieutenant Taylor went to see Mrs. Roberts at the home of a friend some eight miles from the Roberts home and requested her to sign a "consent to search" which Taylor had prepared and which has been introduced in evidence. It was explained to Mrs. Roberts that she was not required to execute the document unless she desired to do so. Mrs. Roberts did execute the "consent," and she, the officers, Mrs. Roberts' female friend, and the small son of Mr. and Mrs. Roberts all returned to El Dorado where Mrs. Roberts admitted the officers to the house. The officers probed successfully for and recovered the bullet for which they were looking, and that bullet was turned over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

At the trial of the case this bullet and the bullet which killed Dr. Herlocker were introduced in evidence, and a ballistics expert from the Federal Bureau of Investigation laboratory in Washington, D. C., testified that in his opinion both bullets had been fired from the same pistol.

Prior to defendant's indictment the Court entered an order committing defendant to the Medical Center for Federal Prisoners at Springfield, Missouri, pursuant to 18 U.S.C.A. § 4244, for examination and for evaluation with respect to defendant's competency to stand trial. In due course the staff of the Medical Center reported to the Court that in their opinion defendant was mentally competent to be tried. No opinion was expressed as to defendant's mental...