United States v. White, Crim. No. 476-62.

• Decision Date: 16 December 1963
• Docket Number: Crim. No. 476-62.
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America v. John A. WHITE.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Columbia

225 F. Supp. 514

UNITED STATES of America v. John A. WHITE.

Crim. No. 476-62.

United States District Court District of Columbia.

December 16, 1963.

Harold H. Titus, Jr., Asst. U. S. Atty., for plaintiff.

Bryce Rea, Jr., Thomas M. Knebel, Rea, Cross & Knebel, Washington, D. C., appointed by the Court, for defendant.

YOUNGDAHL, District Judge.

Defendant was convicted of first degree murder by a jury which was unable to agree as to whether punishment would be life imprisonment or death by electrocution. Immediately after the return of this verdict, this Court imposed a sentence of life imprisonment. See D.C. Code § 22-2404, as amended by Pub.L. 87-423 87th Cong. 2d Sess. (1962), 76 Stat. 46. Defendant has now moved for a new trial on several grounds, each of which will be considered separately.

1. Defendant argues that the Court erred in denying defendant's motion for judgment of acquittal at the close of the Government's case on the ground that the Government had not made out a prima facie case of murder in the first degree.¹

Substantial and credible evidence was introduced by the Government from which the jury could have concluded that the defendant White, by means of a shotgun, shot and killed one Kelly Miller Griffin on the afternoon of May 12, 1962, after the defendant had ordered Griffin to move out of the defendant's home and Griffin had refused. Griffin, since sometime in the fall of 1961, had been living in the house with one Florence Ready, the sister of one Savannah King, the woman with whom the defendant had been living for a number of years. Griffin would get drunk in the home from time to time; in April of 1962 he was sentenced to twenty days in the workhouse for drunkenness. Testimony by both Miss Ready and one William Brent, a friend of the defendant's who was in defendant's house several times on the day of the murder, revealed that Griffin returned to the home on Saturday morning, May 12, after having served his twenty days. After the defendant discovered that Griffin had returned, he told Griffin he would have to find some other place to live and that he would have to get out of the house within three minutes. This conversation took place downstairs. Griffin replied that he did not have to go anywhere, and went upstairs. There was no testimony that the defendant had any weapon at that time; he kept his shotgun upstairs in his closet. Sometime later — how long is not clear — the defendant pushed open the door to the room upstairs occupied by Griffin and Florence Ready. Florence Ready was in bed, and Griffin was standing by the bed. Defendant was holding a shotgun, which he aimed at Griffin and fired. Immediately after the shooting he told Savannah King to call the police. The police arrived at approximately 3:23 p. m.; Griffin died an hour and a half later of hemorrhagic shock, loss of blood volume, and a blast injury through the left chest to the heart and liver.

The testimony presented in the Government's case, as outlined above, is amply sufficient to support a verdict of first degree murder. Slight variations in the testimony — concerning, for instance, the distance from the defendant to Griffin at the time of the shooting — were minor. Defendant's attorney had full opportunity to cross-examine, and any inconsistencies were for the jury to consider in evaluating credibility and in determining the facts of the case.

2. The defendant argues that the verdict of first degree murder is not supported by substantial evidence and is contrary to the evidence viewed as a whole.

In addition to the above testimony, the jury had for its consideration testimony presented by the defendant — namely, defendant White's own testimony in which he claimed that he acted in self-defense because he thought Griffin was advancing toward him with a knife; the testimony of several reputation witnesses; and the testimony of Savannah King. The testimony of Savannah King actually supported the Government's case.² She testified to occasions prior to Griffin's being sent to the workhouse on which Griffin's behavior had been upsetting to the defendant, including one time when Griffin had urinated on the living room floor. While these incidents were introduced to show provocation justifying a verdict of manslaughter or second degree murder, the jury also had a right to consider them as indicating a motive on the part of defendant to kill Griffin if he refused to move after returning from the workhouse. In addition, Miss King testified that there had been two arguments downstairs and one upstairs on the day of the murder, all concerning the defendant's insistence that Griffin leave. She also testified that it was the defendant's practice to keep his shotgun unloaded. The jury could therefore have inferred not only that defendant had to go to his closet to get the gun, but also that he had to take time to load it. Miss King also testified that immediately before she heard the shot, she heard the defendant say, "Oh, you're not going to move, ha?"

The verdict of first degree murder is thus completely supported by the evidence viewed as a whole. It was for the jury either to accept or reject the defendant's version, which claimed self-defense, and implicit in the verdict is that they rejected it.

3. The defendant argues that the Court erred in permitting the Government to cross-examine the defendant with respect to a statement made by defendant to the police while in custody and before being brought before a Commissioner pursuant to Rule 5, Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.

Because the Court had some doubts about the admissibility, under Mallory v. United States, 354 U.S. 449, 77 S.Ct. 1356, 1 L.Ed.2d 1479 (1957), of a statement made to the police by the defendant and signed by him, and because the Government's case was ample without the confession, the Court urged the Government not to introduce the statement into evidence and the Government acceded to the request. Before the defendant took the stand in his own behalf, however, the defendant was warned that the Government had a right, under Tate v. United States, 109 U.S.App.D.C. 13, 283 F.2d 377 (1960), to use the statement in a limited manner to impeach any testimony by the defendant which went beyond "specific and limited exculpatory statements" and which did not deal with an essential element of the offense itself. 109 U.S.App.D.C. at 16, 283 F.2d at 380. The defendant took the stand and testified to the following effect: When he came upstairs Griffin started grinning at him and pushed the door closed in his face. Defendant then opened the door and told Griffin to move out of the house; Griffin responded with a threat to the defendant and defendant's family and started toward his closet. The defendant then left, went to his own closet, and returned with his shotgun. Upon his return to Griffin's door, he said that Griffin was coming toward him and that Griffin had his right hand in his (Griffin's) pocket. The inference was that Griffin had a knife in his pocket. On cross-examination, the defendant was asked if he had told the police that Griffin had his hand in his pocket and threatened him. The defendant replied that he did not remember, and volunteered the fact that he had made a statement to the police. The Court then permitted the Government to refresh his recollection as to whether or not he had told the police about the threat and the hand in the pocket by reading silently, to himself, his signed statement. The defendant then testified that he still did not remember whether he had told the police that Griffin had threatened him or that Griffin had his hand in his pocket, but that he did not see it in the statement.³

Assuming without deciding that the statement was obtained in violation of Mallory, supra, this extremely limited use of such statement was completely within the rationale and requirements of Tate, supra, and took into full account the competing policies of the value of the exclusionary rule and the necessity of truth-telling. Previous silence on the details of such a story was proper impeachment.

4. Defendant argues that the Court erred in refusing to charge the jury, as requested by defendant, that if the jury was convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant was guilty "of some grade of culpable homicide" but was reasonably doubtful as to whether he was guilty of first or second degree murder or manslaughter, it could not find him guilty of a higher offense than manslaughter.

Defendant cites McAffee v. United States, 70 U.S.App.D.C. 142, 152-153, 105 F.2d 21, 31-32 (1939) in support of his proposition. But McAffee dealt with an entirely different situation. There the trial judge apparently thought it sufficient "merely to define the elements which comprise each degree of the crime charged and then to tell the jury that the defendant must be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt." 70 U.S.App.D.C. at 152, 105 F.2d at 31. The Court of Appeals held this to be error because the jury might be confused "unless the reasonable doubt requirement is made specifically applicable to doubt as to the degree of the crime." Ibid.

There was no possibility of such confusion in the minds of the jurors under the instructions as given by this Court. The requirement of proof by the Government beyond a reasonable doubt was consistently, repeatedly, and individually applied to each degree of homicide and to each essential element of each degree. In fact, the charge requested by the defendant would have itself caused confusion, because it erroneously assumes that there is some offense called "culpable homicide," the elements of which the jury would understand. The various degrees of homicide are defined as separate offenses in the statute and they were defined separately to the jury, with a requirement of proof beyond a reasonable doubt applied individually to each. The jurors were told that if they were not unanimously convinced that the Government...