Watts v. State
| Decision Date | 19 February 1904 |
| Citation | 57 A. 542,99 Md. 30 |
| Parties | WATTS v. STATE. |
| Court | Maryland Court of Appeals |
Appeal from Circuit Court, Harford County; James D. Watters, Judge.
Edward C. Watts was convicted of murder, and he appeals. Reversed.
Argued before McSHERRY, C.J., and FOWLER, BRISCOE, BOYD, PEARCE PAGE, SCHMUCKER, and JONES, JJ.
John S Young and Howard Bryant, for appellant.
Wm. S Bryan, Jr., Atty. Gen., for the State.
The appellant was indicted in the circuit court for Baltimore county for the murder of his wife, and, the case being removed for trial to the circuit court for Harford county, he was there convicted of murder in the first degree, and sentenced to death. During the course of the trial, 15 exceptions were taken. The first exception was taken to the overruling of a demurrer to the indictment, and the subsequent refusal to quash the indictment because of an amendment thereto which it is alleged rendered it void. The second, third, and seventh exceptions were taken to the admission of a confession made by the defendant. The fourth, fifth, sixth, eighth, and ninth exceptions were taken to the refusal to allow nonexpert witnesses to give their opinion of defendant's sanity, after stating the facts upon which these opinions were based. The tenth, twelfth, thirteenth, and fifteenth exceptions relate to the allowance of certain hypothetical questions put by the state to several physicians to test their opinion of defendant's sanity. The eleventh exception was taken to the cross-examination of Dr. Hill in reference to his testimony as an expert in the Berry will case, and also in the case of a man named Klein, indicted for murder. The fourteenth exception was taken to a ruling allowing the defendant's family physician to state that he had never heard any intimation that defendant was not mentally sound. These exceptions will be considered as they have been grouped.
The presentment charged the defendant with the murder of Caroline Watts. The indictment, as returned by the grand jury, and as filed with the clerk of the court, in the first count followed the presentment, and charged the murder of Caroline Watts, though in the second count it charged the murder of Katherine C. Watts. It is admitted by the state that, after the adjournment of the grand jury, the state's attorney for Baltimore county, with the leave of the court, but without the knowledge or assent of the grand jury, amended the first count of the indictment by striking out the name "Caroline" and inserting in its place the name "Katherine C." It appears from the record that the amendment did not appear upon the face of the indictment, and the demurrer was therefore properly overruled.
The motion to quash the indictment went to both counts, and in the first paragraph of the motion it was alleged generally that the state's attorney changed the name "Caroline Watts," in the indictment returned, to "Katherine C. Watts," as it appeared in the record transmitted to the circuit court for Harford county, which rendered the indictment defective; and the written admission of the state's attorney, set out in the record, is that the alleged amendment was made "in the indictment," from which the necessary inference would be that the change was made in each count of the indictment. The fifth and sixth paragraphs of the motion, however, specifically state that this change was made in the first count of the indictment, which at once suggests that it was made only in the first count; and at the argument it was expressly stated that it was made only in the first count, as shown by the docket entries then filed. It is established by all the authorities that the name of a person in an indictment is matter of substance, which cannot be changed without the consent of the grand jury, and that the Christian as well as the sur name is included in this rule. Wharton's Crim.Pr. & Pl. (9th Ed.) § 109; 10 Enc.Pl. & Pr. 688-690; Hawthorn v. State, 56 Md. 535. An instrument thus changed is no longer the indictment found by the grand jury. 1 Bishop's Crim. Procedure, § 710; Ex parte Bain, 121 U.S. 1, 7 Sup.Ct. 781, 30 L.Ed. 849; Byers v. State, 63 Md. 207. Neither the state's attorney, nor the court, nor both together, can supply the necessary authority, which can only come from the grand jury, in the absence of some statutory provision. The only provisions in our Code for amendment of an indictment in case of misnomer are found in sections 283 and 284 of article 27, Code Pub.Gen.Laws. Section 283 provides for the misnomer of the defendant, and is applicable only where the misnomer is pleaded in abatement, when the amendment must conform to the true name disclosed in the plea of abatement. Section 284 provides for the amendment of an indictment when the name of any person other than the defendant has been erroneously set forth therein. Such amendment is made according to the proof in the cause, but this is authorized only after a jury has been sworn on the indictment, and in the case before us the amendment was made before the jury was sworn. It is consequently of no avail, and, if the amendment had been made in both counts of the indictment, it would have vitiated the instrument. But having been made only in the first count, the second count remained a valid, subsisting count, sufficient to sustain the verdict, if otherwise justified; and the motion to quash, being addressed to both counts, was properly overruled. That this motion was the proper mode of presenting the objection, we think, must be regarded as settled in this state by the case of Byers v. State, 63 Md. 210, in which the mode of returning presentments and bills of indictment by grand juries, and filing them by the clerks, and the practice regulating the correction of errors therein, was fully and carefully considered by the late Judge Miller. In that case, which was an indictment for bigamy, there was a blank in the indictment, as returned by the grand jury, for the name of the woman whom he was charged to have married during the life of his wife; and on the following day, while the grand jury was still in session, the foreman and the state's attorney called the attention of the court to the omission, and the grand jury thereupon appeared at the bar of the court and requested the return of the indictment for the purpose of filling the blank, which was ordered, and the blank was filled by the grand jury in their room, and the indictment subsequently returned and delivered to the court. On motion in arrest of judgment, based on affidavits, the court held that the alleged error was not apparent on the face of the record, and that the question could not be thus raised, and that what the grand jury did was substantially the same thing as finding a new indictment. The learned judge, however, said:
The second, third, and seventh exceptions relate to the confession admitted in evidence. This confession was made to Mr. Marley, a reporter of the Evening News, by the defendant while in jail, in the presence of the deputy sheriff and the jail warden, and was taken down in shorthand by Mr. Linzey, who stated that he knew of no inducements offered by Mr. Linzey, but that he did not recollect what Mr. Linzey said at the time. Mr. Marley was not in court when the confession was offered, owing to his sickness, and defendant's counsel asked that the confession be not received until Mr. Marley could be examined in regard to it, but the court ruled it should be read in evidence at once; and this constitutes the second exception. Before the confession was read, the defendant asked the court to limit the confession in its effect, and to rule for what purposes it could be considered by the jury; but the court refused the request, and admitted the confession for all purposes. This constitutes the third exception. After the confession had been read in evidence, Mr. Marley was sworn for the defendant, and stated that he told him he need not say anything unless he desired, but that he also told him "it would be possibly better for him if he would make a clean statement, so it would not appear erroneously in the papers; that the papers would get it anyway, and, as my paper was an evening paper, the correct statement would come out first." The third exception does not make clear what limitation was sought to be imposed upon the effect of the confession, or what ruling was asked of the court, and it...
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