Webster v. State

• Decision Date: 16 September 1965
• Parties: , 59 Del. 54 Ann WEBSTER, Defendant Below, Appellant, v. STATE of Delaware, Plaintiff Below, Appellee.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Delaware

Page 298

213 A.2d 298

9 Storey 54, 59 Del. 54

Ann WEBSTER, Defendant Below, Appellant, v. STATE of Delaware, Plaintiff Below, Appellee.

Supreme Court of Delaware.

Sept. 16, 1965.

Upon appeal from judgment of conviction and sentence of the Superior Court of New Castle County for involuntary manslaughter.

Vincent A. Theisen and Victor F. Battaglia, of Theisen & Lank, Wilmington, for defendant below, appellant.

Ruth M. Ferrell, Deputy Atty. Gen., for plaintiff below, appellee.

WOLCOTT, Chief Justice, and CAREY and HERRMANN, JJ., sitting:

HERRMANN, Justice.

The jury found the defendant Ann Webster guilty of involuntary manslaughter after trial on an indictment for murder in the second degree. Upon this appeal, the defendant asserts several grounds of reversible error in the trial.

I.

The defendant's version of the facts is as follows:

The defendant and her husband had been quarreling about his threat to leave her. On the occasion of an earlier separation, the defendant had been frightened by prowlers and she decided to purchase a gun for self-protection. On the morning of the fatal shooting, at the defendant's request, a friend purchased a nine-shot .22 caliber revolver for her, loaded it, and delivered it to her. That evening, alone in their bedroom, the defendant was again told by her husband that he intended to leave. The defendant went into another room and returned with the loaded pistol in her hand. The husband, a semi-professional athlete, thereupon threw a heavy baseball trophy at the defendant, striking her in the head. The gun went off once and the husband was hit. A struggle ensued during which the gun went off eight more times, the husband being hit each time. The defendant was rendered unconscious during the struggle, sustaining several head and face injuries. When she regained consciousness, she fled the house to avoid further attack by her husband who sought to renew the struggle. The defendant ran to her mother's home and then went promptly to the police station to report the matter, arriving at about 8:45 P.M.

Because of her condition, the police immediately took the defendant to the hospital where she was given first aid treatment; and she was returned to the police station about 10:45 P.M. In the meanwhile, the police commenced investigation and found the husband dead, the body being in a chair in the kitchen of the house. The investigating officers returned to the police station at about 11:30 P.M. Interrogation of the defendant commenced at about 12:15 A.M. She was advised that she did not have to make a statement, that she had the right to consult counsel, and that anything she said could be used against her. During the interrogation she asked for and was given cigarettes, coffee, and aspirin. Her written statement was completed and signed at about 3:00 A.M., after eyeglasses were retrieved from her home by the police so that she could read the statement. Thereafter, the defendant was processed at the police station, including fingerprinting and photographing. At about 4:30 A.M., at her request, she was returned to her home for a change of clothing prior to appearance before the Justice of the Peace, which occurred at about 5:30 or 6:00 A.M. She was thereafter promptly delivered to the constable.

II.

The defendant contends that her inculpatory statement was admitted in evidence in violation of Superior Court Criminal Rule 5(a), Del.C.Ann. ¹ The defendant relies upon Mallory v. United States, 354 U.S. 449, 77 S.Ct. 1356, 1 L.Ed.2d 1479 (1957) and McNabb v. United States, 318 U.S. 332, 63 S.Ct. 608, 87 L.Ed. 819 (1942).

The question is not properly before us for review. Neither on the voir dire examination before the court nor in the presentation of the statement before the jury was the question of unlawful detention raised; and no objection to the admission of the statement was made at any stage of the trial on that ground. Voluntariness, in the ordinary sense, was the only issue raised at the trial in connection with the admissibility of the statement; and that issue went to the jury in the usual way and under the usual instruction. Compare Wilson v. State, 10 Terry 37, 49 Del. 37, 109 A.2d 381, 387 (1954).

As a general rule, we will not consider on appeal questions not fairly presented below. Matters of public policy, however, are exceptions to the general rule. Rickards v. State, 6 Terry 573, 45 Del. 573, 77 A.2d 199 (1950). Under that exception, because of its importance to the proper administration of criminal justice, we proceed to consider the question raised.

In the recent case of Vorhauer v. State, Del., 212 A.2d 886 (1965), we adopted the McNabb-Mallory rule, ² excluding evidence obtained during an illegal detention, and applied it to a detention exceeding the 24 hour period specified by 11 Del.C. § 1911. ³ We there held that, by virtue of the public policy announced in § 1911, any detention exceeding 24 hours, without the required appearance before a Justice of the Peace, constitutes 'unreasonable delay' and illegal detention as a matter of law, unless the reason therefor is one recognized by the Statute as a ground for permissible delay; and we held that any inculpatory statement or confession obtained during an unreasonable delay is inadmissible in evidence without regard for voluntariness. We there stated:

'* * * The exclusion in criminal trials of evidence obtained as a result of such violation of the law is the most practical and effective means at the disposal of our courts for the avoidance of similar violations in the future. We adopt such means to enforce the law, seeking to deter unlawful detentions just as we have sought to deter unlawful arrests. The law may not be enforced by disobedience of the law.'

Thus, as a rule of evidence to enforce compliance with Rule 5 and § 1911, we applied the McNabb-Mallory rule to the circumstances of the Vorhauer case.

For the same basic reasons, we think that the exclusionary rule should be applicable to illegal detentions of less than 24 hours. Clearly, a delay may be 'unreasonable', and in violation of the Rule and the Statute, though less than 24 hours in duration. But no clear-cut standards of reasonableness may be prescribed. Each case must be considered by the trial judge on its own facts; and the number of hours of detention prior to appearance before a Justice of the Peace is to be considered by the trial judge, together with all of the other circumstances of the case, in determining whether the delay was unreasonable, and in violation of Rule 5 and § 1911, so as to bar admission of a confession or statement obtained during such delay.

We emphasize that, unlike the issue of voluntariness which is based upon constitutional grounds, the reasonableness of a delay is a question of evidence to be determined by the trial judge alone; it does not become a jury question. Compare Wilson v. State, supra; Jackson v. Denno, 378 U.S. 368, 84 S.Ct. 1774, 12 L.Ed.2d 908 (1964). As we have indicated in Vorhauer, and as appears in McNabb and Mallory, the exclusionary rule with which we deal here is a rule of evidence, adopted by the courts as an instrument to implement the proper administration of criminal justice; and it does not stand upon constitutional grounds. See also Upshaw v. United States, 335 U.S. 410, 69 S.Ct. 170, 93 L.Ed. 100 (1948). As a rule of evidence, it is to be applied by the trial court, without jury participation, in the same manner as other rules of evidence. Compare Lasby v. State, Del., 185 A.2d 271, 274 (1962). We find no merit in the defendant's attempt to read constitutional guarantees into the McNabb-Mallory rule.

In the instant case, the defendant was held as an accused for approximately four hours before she signed the statement and for approximately three hours thereafter before she was taken to the Justice of the Peace. Part of this time was used to comply with her requests for spectacles and clothing. In considering the reasonableness of the delay, the significant hours of detention are those occurring before the confession and not those thereafter. United States v. Mitchell, 322 U.S. 65, 64 S.Ct. 896, 88 L.Ed. 1140 (1944). We are satisfied that there was no unreasonable delay in bringing this defendant before a Justice of the Peace. On the contrary, we think that the police officers in this case observed the legal proprieties, as well as the civilities, most commendably.

There was no violation of Rule 5 or § 1911 and, accordingly, the statement should not have been ruled inadmissible in evidence on that ground, as the defendant urges.

III.

The defendant contends that there were prejudicial errors in the jury charge.

The court charged on the statutory crime of manslaughter, reading 11 Del.C. § 467 ⁴ verbatim. The charge then contained the following:

'If you find beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant, Ann Webster, unlawfully pointed a firearm towards the decedent, Arthur Webster, and death results from the unlawful act, and if you do not find that the act was committed under circumstances amounting to murder in the second degree of voluntary manslaughter as I have defined those crimes to you, you should find the defendant guilty of involuntary manslaughter.' (Emphasis supplied.)

The defendant attacks this portion of the charge in two respects:

First, it is argued that it was prejudicial error for the court to use the words 'unlawfully pointed' in lieu of the statutory words 'intentionally pointed.'

While we agree that it would have been preferable to utilize the statutory language, we do not agree that the difference in the wording constitutes reversible error. The charge, as supplemented in response to the jury's subsequent inquiry, included three separate readings of § 467. The jury must have understood thereform that an intentional pointing was the gravamen of the offense; and we do not believe that the jury was mislead, or the defendant otherwise prejudiced, by ...