Cothron v. State

Boyd, C. J., delivered the opinion of the court. • The appellant and her husband, Clarence Oothron, and William Eugene Landers, otherwise called “Gene” Landers, were jointly indicted for the murder of Homer Jones on the 11th day of June, 1919, in Montgomery County, Md. She elected to be tried by the court, and was, on the 25th day of May, 1920, convicted by a full bench of that circuit of murder in the first degree. The same day she was sentenced to ¹⁰³ the Maryland penitentiary for the term of her natural life, and from that judgment this appeal was taken. There are seventeen bills of exception in the record, presenting rulings of the court on the admissibility of evidence. It is contended in tbe brief for the appellant that there was no legally sufficient evidence to convict her of that crime hut, as there is nothing before ns to raise such question, it is unnecessary for ns to discuss it, and we could not properly do so.

The first exception was to the offer and introduction of a statement made by the appellant on September 19, 1919, in the presence of the 'State’s Attorney for Cecil County, the Sheriff and Deputy Sheriff of that county, and written out by the stenographer1 of the State’s Attorney. Later another statement was offered and admitted, which was made by her at the Baltimore City jail in the presence of Detective Carey of the Baltimore City Police Department, which was taken down by a stenographer and afterwards reduced to writing, in the presence of her mother, her stepfather1 and the warden of the City jail. Detectives Carey and D'ougherty took it to the jail and, in1 the presence of the matron and warden, the appellant read it over, made some corrections!, signed it and said it was correct. The ruling in admitting that statement in evidence is embraced in the second bill of exceptions.

It was shown that there were no promises, threats, or inducements of any kind, to- influence- her to make either of ’those statements', and there was no proffer by her to prove that they were made by reason of any promises, etc., and they were properly admitted in evidence. There was, therefore’, no error in admitting them, or either of them, even if they be treated as confessions and not as mere statements — a distinction which is made in some authorities cited by the State’, but which we need not discuss. Prior to the admission of thei last mentioned statement, evidence of two detective® was given as to oral statements made to them, by the appellant in the presence of her husband, when they were on their way from Florida, where they were arrested for what is spoken of as the Weldon murder, ¹⁰⁴ and there was no exception taken to that testimony. In order that the questions raised can be better understood, we will first state some of the facts we find in the record which relate to the movements of these parties before, at the time of, and after, the murder of Jones.

About the first of April, 1919, the appellant and her husband came from Florida to Baltimore. She became acquainted with Landers; whom she generally spoke of as “Gene,” but sometimes as “John,” and testified that she had met him in Baltimore and introduced him to her husband. Her husband and Landers made their plans to rob the Highland Bank in Howard County, Md. She testified that they went three or four times to Laurel, which is not far from the bank, although in a different county, in automobiles driven by colored chauffeurs, and that on the 11th of June; 1919, her husband hired Homer Jones; a colored man, to drive them out in a car which he ran, on which day her husband and Landers intended to rob the bank, and, as she described the plans, “Gene and Clarence (her husband) were to go in and rob the old man and I was to stay outside and if anybody started to go in the bank I was to ask some questions so as to stall them off and keep- them from going in the bank. That was the time we went down with Homer Jones.” The “old man” she referred to was connected with the bank and wasi usually alone about 12 o’clock.

She said in the statement that they had told Jones that they were going after a girl, but testified on the stand that Jones knew about the proposed robbery — that Landers said: “We are all fixed now; the chauffeur is right with us; Jones is right with us. I have promised him so much money to help us get away with the car. He is right on the deal.” Gene and Clarence concluded that there were too- many people about the bank and they abandoned the plan of robbing it that day. They got something to eat, and drove down a road leading off the main road and went into some woods, where they prepared dinner’, which the four ate.

After finishing their dinner and -talking for a while, she said she went back to the car. There is conflict between her written state ¹⁰⁵ ments and her testimony as to who did the shooting and who was with her in the ear, as in the statements she said Gene was with her and her husband stayed with Jones, and killed him, while in her testimony she said her husband was with her and Gene killed him. She said she heard several shots.— thought there were three: — and the one who did the shooting called the other and they moved Jones’ hody further hack. She testified that she asked Gene why he killed Jones, and he said he did not see any show to rob the hank. “He knew that the chauffeur had noticed it and he was afraid to go back to town for fear the chauffeur might squeal on him, and he said that was why he killed him.” 'She testified that she did not know that they were going to kill Jones and that she did not see him after she went to the ear; that Gene threatened her when she asked some questions.

They returned to .Baltimore in Jones’ oar and she said “John,” as she called him then, got some licenses from the boarding mistress where he lived. They rode out of town and Landers put the licenses on the car, did something to the old license and said he had disfigured it. In the statement she stated that she suggested going to Atlantic City, where her mother was, and they could sell the ear, hut she testified that her husband suggested that. At any rate they went to Atlantic City and the car was sold, with the aid of her mother.

They then wont to New York, and in one of her statements she said: “Gene wanted me to go into the cabarets and pick up men so they could knock them off for their diamonds and money. I did not get anybody and we went to Coney Island. Gene sat with the driver and pulled him for all the information he wanted about getting1 money at Coney Island.” She said, in answer to a question asked by her counsel why she did not leave Landers and her husband after Jo-nos was killed: “I did not get a chance to leave them. If I started — they would not let me get away from them, at all.

John said he would kill me, shoot me right down.” She was then asked: “After you left John, why didn’t you leave yo-ur husband?” And replied: “Why didn’t I leave my husband? ¹⁰⁶ Why I didn’t know what he might do to me. Q. Did he ever say? A. Ho, why he has, yes, after Weldon was killed he has threatened my life.” She and her husband went to Florida and on the lfth of July, 1919, they were arrested there and brought back to Maryland, charged with the murder of the man named Weldon. At the trial Detective Dougherty had testified without objection that he did not think he had questioned the appellant as to whether she was in the car when the shooting of Jones occurred, and in explanation of that said: “The object at that time was to get to the Weldon body and that is why we did not.

I did not hold them to the Homer Jones affair, because at that time there was a mystery. We had Weldon’s oar and his ring, but did not have his body, and the object of us going along at that time was to find where Weldon’s body was.” In her examination in chief she several times spoke of the Weldon murder. She had testified without objection that “after the killing of Homer Jones she, in company with Landers and her husband, went to Atlantic City, and from there to New York, where they were separated from Landers, she and her husband going to1 Philadelphia.” She was then asked: “Where did you go from Philadelphia?” That was objected to, was overruled and is presented by the eighth bill of exceptions. She replied that they went from Philadelphia, to Florida.

We can see no possible objection to- that inquiry, as the State undoubtedly had the right to inquire into their movements shortly before and after the Jones murder. As was said by Judge Stookbbidge, in McCleary v. State, 122 Md. 398 : “If, as claimed by the State, a murder had been committed, the movements and declarations made by the traverser between the time of the commission of the crime and the time of his arrest could hardly be other than competent- as reflecting upon his culpability vei nonWe can have no possible doubt about the correctness of the ruling in that (eighth) exception. Before taking up the exceptions numbered from third to seventh, it will be convenient' to consider the ninth, tenth, ¹⁰⁷ eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth. They relate to questions asked the appellant on cross-examination, as to what occurred between Philadelphia and Florida and after they reached Florida, which were connected with the Weldon murder.

The record sufficiently shows that before this trial the appellant’s husband had been tried for1 ihe murder of John T. Weldon in Cecil County, in this State, and had been convicted and sentenced to the penitentiary for life, and that the appellant had been tried and acquitted of the larceny of a ring which Weldon wore and'that the charge of murder of Weldon against her had been abandoned. Indeed, in the brief for the appellant it is stated that it, was proved and admitted in evidence, before the appellant took the stand, that her husband had been tried, convicted and sentenced for the murder of Weldon, and was then undergoing sentence in the penitentiary, and that it had been proved by the State’s witnesses, and admitted as a fact, that, the appellant was jointly indicted with her husband for the murder of Weldon, but a nolle prosequi had been entered in her case, and that she had been indicted for robbery of a diamond ring of Weldon’s, but had been acquitted of that charge in Cecil County. After saving in the eighth exception that they had gone from Philadelphia to Florida, she was asked in the ninth, “Whose automobile did you use?” And replied, “John T. Weldon’s automobile”; then in the tenth: “How did you get the use of his automobile to get from Philadelphia to Florida?” to which she answered, “My husband hired the car in the beginning and then he killed the chauffeur”; in the eleventh, “Where were you when that occurred?” she replied, “I was with him, but I was out to the car when the shooting started”; in the twelfth, “What became of the diamond ring?” she said that “The lawyers have that in Florida”; in the thirteenth, “You wore it down there?1” and replied, “Yes. I was tried for that case.” “Yes, I was acquitted for it; found not guilty”; in the fourteenth, “How did yon get the ring?” and answered, “My husband brought it up to the car after he killed Weldon”; and in the fifteenth, “Your husband brought ¹⁰⁸ it and gave it to you and you wore it down to Florida ?” and she repeated that her husband had given it to her, had his revolver in one hand, the ring in the other and told her to take it, and she was afraid after he had killed the man that he might turn on her.

It is not shown on what day Weldon was murdered, hut it was in Cecil County, which is a short distance from Philadelphia, .and as they were arrested on the lfth of July in Florida, it must have been shortly after’ the murder’ of Jones, which occurred on' June 11th. It was undoubtedly competent to prove their movements at that time-, and although the testimony involved another crime-, it reflected upon their guilt to prove that, in getting away from Maryland where the Jones murder was committed, the chauffeur was killed and the automobile be was driving then used to continue their journey to Florida. The circumstances of the Weldon murder connect it with the Jones murder, and after they had disposed of the Jones automobile they would naturally seek to get away from the region where it occurred, and as another man was murdered and his automobile used for the trip- to Florida, instead of going by train, or in some lawful way, it would he difficult to exclude the suggestion that would arise in the mind of aAyone, that the murder was a part of the plan to avoid detection in reference to the Jones murder and enable them to escape. It may he that it was not then known by the authorities that Jones had been murdered, or who murdered him, but even if tbe conscience of a criminal has become too hardened to trouble him, his fears of detection may cause him to flee and to do things which sometimes enable the authorities to detect him.

It may he that the examination of the appellant in reference to the Weldon case went more into detail than was necessary, hut probably it was done on the theory that it was proper to inquire, on cross-examination, into the facts, so as to ascertain whether the appellant was Tmder the coercion of her husband, or so connected with the Weldon matter as to reflect upon the Jones murder. As it was admitted that the trials for the Weldon murder and ¹⁰⁹ the larceny of the ring were over before the appellant was tried in this ease, it is impossible to see how she could have been injured by what was brought out, even if some of the inquiries went further than were admissible. Indeed, explanations by her might have helped her, if she was innocent, for although when a ease is tried before a court, instead of a jury, the court is governed by the same rules of law as the jury, it would have been practically impossible for the court not to have known of the Weldon murder, even if they did not know of the details, and, as we have seen, it did know of it from what was proven and admitted at the trial When one murder and theft follow another so quickly, and the parties charged with the first are known to be closely connected witli the second, under such circumstances as are shown in this case, there might he more danger of