Williams v. Commonwealth

• Decision Date: 09 November 1934
• Parties: WILLIAMS v. COMMONWEALTH.
• Court: Kentucky Court of Appeals

77 S.W.2d 609

257 Ky. 175

WILLIAMS v. COMMONWEALTH.

Court of Appeals of Kentucky

November 9, 1934

Rehearing Denied Jan. 25, 1935.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Christian County.

Charlie Williams, alias "Slim," was convicted of murder and he appeals.

Affirmed.

W. E Rogers, Jr., of Hopkinsville, for appellant.

Bailey P. Wootton, Atty. Gen., and David C. Walls, Asst. Atty. Gen for the Commonwealth.

PERRY Justice.

The appellant, Charlie Williams (alias "Slim"), was jointly indicted with Bailey Warfield by the grand jury of the Christian circuit court at its February term, 1934, for the willful murder of G. E. Lane "by shooting and wounding him with a pistol, loaded with leaden bullets, from which shooting and wounding the said Lane did then and there presently die."

Williams was upon his separate trial found guilty as charged and sentenced to death.

It may be conceded that appellant's conviction upon the murder charge rested largely upon the testimony of the self-confessed accomplice, Bailey Warfield, and whether there was any or sufficient proof corroborating that testimony and tending to connect the accused with the commission of the offense is presented upon this appeal as the sole question involved and earnestly insisted upon for reversal of the judgment. Such being the nature of appellant's contention, it is necessary that we should, for the proper determination of this question, first give a brief summary of the facts as disclosed by this accomplice and corroborative evidence.

On the night of December 16, 1933, G. E. Lane, then an employee of the Illinois Central Railroad Company, was found at about 10:30 p. m. by Herman King, a police officer of the city of Hopkinsville, shot and mortally wounded, lying on the front porch of the residence of the Hon. S. Y. Trimble, situated on South Virginia street, near the Illinois Central Railroad tracks and just beyond the city limits of Hopkinsville. When found, Lane told King that he was seriously wounded and to call an ambulance at once for his removal to the hospital which was done. Lane was removed to the Jennie Stuart Hospital, where he was operated on and later died about 2:30 a. m. following. A statement was made to the officer by Lane when found as to the circumstances under which he was shot, but its not having been made to appear that such statement was made by Lane under a realization of his impending death, it was for such reason not offered nor introduced in evidence as a dying declaration.

The facts, however, surrounding Lane's shooting and killing, as shown chiefly by the evidence of Bailey Warfield (self-confessed accomplice in Lane's murder), are briefly as follows:

The deceased, Mr. Lane, was at the time of his murder--as an employee of the said railroad company--required, among other things, to check all railroad cars which came into the Hopkinsville yard and to examine the seals, locking same. On the night of December 16, 1933, at about 9 o'clock, he left the main office of the railroad company to go about two miles down to the railroad yard, near the fairground, to check some cars there located, which were some 500 yards distant from the home of the Hon. S. Y. Trimble. There was a switch light located at this point, and a short distance beyond and down the track from this switch light was a small house or shack, in which there was installed a company telephone. Between this point and Mr. Trimble's home, there intervenes an open field, to which Allen was removed by his assailants after they had shot him and across which he crawled to get to Mr. Trimble's home.

Upon Williams' trial, Bailey Warfield testified, as a prosecuting witness and accomplice, that he and the appellant Williams first became acquainted while they were confined as prisoners in the Warren county jail in 1933; that upon their release therefrom, they became close associates and confederates and started upon a campaign of robbery, which they extensively pursued in several of the smaller towns in Western Kentucky; that in the course of such operations, they visited Hopkinsville about the 1st of December with a view to mapping out a plan of robbery there; that about the 9th of December they broke into a store at Russellville, Ky. just prior to their robbery and murder of Mr. Lane at Hopkinsville on December 16; that after their store breaking at Russellville, they went to Elizabethtown, which it appears was their headquarters; that on January 3, the appellant and Warfield (assisted by some other negroes) broke into the Penney Store at Princeton, Ky. when Warfield was caught, but Williams escaped after being fired at by a watchman of the store. The proof is, as given by the accomplice and also by the appellant when testifying upon his arrest and examination in the Hopkinsville police court, that appellant and Warfield were daily associated and were constantly together throughout the month of December, 1933, in conducting their campaign of robberies, as stated, and kept together while so operating every day throughout December. The appellant admits his having committed the Russellville robbery or store breaking on December 9 and later that of the Penney Store at Princeton on January 3 while operating in each instance (and perhaps in other like offenses) with the accomplice, Bailey Warfield, as was also testified by the latter.

Warfield further testified that upon their visit to Hopkinsville about December 1, 1933, they informed themselves as to the decedent Lane's employment with the Illinois Central Railroad Company, the nature of his nightly duty as such, which was to go to the distant railroad yards at the city limits for making a record of the seal numbers of the cars of incoming trains, and of the time of his pay day as such employee on the 15th of each month; that with a view to his robbery at such time they attempted to return to Hopkinsville on that date, but that they did not arrive there until about 1 or 2 o'clock on the morning of December 16, when it appears they later called up some negro women inviting them to have breakfast with them at one Ches Haynes' restaurant, who did breakfast there with them that morning; that later that night about 9 o'clock, they went by different routes to the distant railroad yard near the city limits to meet and rob the decedent, Mr. Lane; that they met according to plan, at the switch light, from which point they together went towards the little telephone house or shack, where they expected to meet Lane; that after going a short distance they saw Lane coming with his lantern, which he regularly carried with him in doing this work, when he (Warfield) approached Lane and asked him for a match; that as they were talking, Williams came up from the rear, drew his gun on Lane, and told him that it was a holdup; that he (Warfield) took his money (some 6 or 7 dollars) and his watch and told Williams to hit him, which he did; that Lane, when knocked down, begged for his life, telling them that he had a wife and two children, and not to kill him, but that Williams nevertheless said he would shoot the "s_____ of a b_____"; and that he did then shoot him in the stomach, after which they picked up Lane and carried him over into the field, where he was left by them and from which place he crawled some 500 yards to Mr. Trimble's porch, as stated supra.

Upon the trial it was also testified by the commonwealth's witness Minnie Stewart that she remembered the night that Mr. Lane was killed, having heard of it the following Sunday morning, December 17; that she lived on the top of a hill, just over from the railroad station, and had at about 9 p. m. of the night of December 16th seen a man come out of the Illinois Central freight station with a lantern in his hand; that just prior to that time she had seen two colored men come up, one up the track from the Illinois Central depot and the other from around the box factory nearby; that she saw them meet under the hill at the railroad switch light; that one of the men was tall and slim and the other a rather heavy-set man; and, upon the appellant's trial, he and Warfield being directed to stand up in the courthouse, that she (the witness) might see and identify them as the two negroes previously seen upon the occasion in evidence, she said that the low, heavy man she then saw was like Warfield and the tall, slim man was like the appellant, but that she could not recognize them other than in respect to their relative size and build, which she stated corresponded with that of the two negroes she had then seen; that after seeing the negroes meet at the switch light, they had gone on down the railroad tracks towards the water tank, which is in the direction of the little telephone shack, near where it is in evidence Mr. Lane was at such time, shot and killed by them. It was about 9:30 p. m. witness stated when she saw them meet at the switch and go down the track, which by the evidence it is shown was about the time Mr. Lane was killed.

Tom Parrish, another prosecuting witness and an employee of the railroad company, testified that he was at the main Illinois Central Railroad station in Hopkinsville at about 9 o'clock, upon this occasion when he saw Mr. Lane leave there, carrying his lantern, to go out to the railroad yards for the check-up of the trains.

Goldie Bryson and Lena Weavers, two colored women, were also called as prosecuting witnesses. The former testified that she was invited by Slim Williams, the appellant, when he was in Hopkinsville, just a little while before Christmas, to have breakfast with him and Warfield at Ches Haynes' restaurant and was told by him to also call her friend Lena Weavers and ask her to join them there, and that they did that morning have breakfast with him and...