Dyson v. State

Thompson, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Myrel Dyson, the appellant, complains of a conviction of murder in the second degree in the Criminal Court of Baltimore, Judge Paul T. Pitcher presiding without a jury. The trial was conducted upon a not guilty plea after a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity had been withdrawn subsequent to examina ⁴⁵⁵ tion at a mental hospital. The sentence was for a term of thirty-years.

The victim, the three year old daughter of Dyson and his wife, died on October 5, 1967 as a result of head injuries which occurred on October 3, 1967. It appears that Myrel Dyson walked his wife to Provident Hospital in Baltimore where she was a charge nurse, and the victim and her fourteen month old brother were left alone at the house. At the time the parties left the house the daughter was in good condition and was eating at the table and the young son was asleep in bed. About 1:00 A.M. Dyson returned to the hospital to tell his wife that the little girl was bleeding badly.

On returning home she found the child yelling and screaming and was informed by her husband that when he was shaking the victim on the floor she “hit her head,” indicating that he was punishing the child because she did not want to say “grace”; but he directed his wife to state at the hospital that the child had fallen. The admitting doctor, however, directed that the police be notified of a “case of probable child abuse.” The wife also testified that Dyson had violently beaten and hit the child an average of twice a week since July of 1966, when the husband returned from military service. She stated that although she had occasionally whipped the child with a belt, her whippings were for the purpose of chastisement and were not violent and were done more to prevent her husband from administering more severe punishment and injuring the child than for any other reason. Medical testimony showed that the child died as a result of a wound on the right side of the head and that there were thirty-two scars on the various parts of the body and an additional two on the forehead.

All except the one on the right side of the head had healed. Pictures showing the condition of the body at the time of autopsy were admitted into evidence. Dyson also testified, claiming that the child had fallen and hit her head when he went to the kitchen to fix some milk for the younger son. He denied that he had told his wife that the child was injured when he was hitting her head on the floor.

He stated that when the police came to talk with his wife about the incident he fled the house because he had been previously locked up on December 10, 1966. “Well, I feared jail because I knew they ⁴⁵⁶ were not going to believe me. They always take the woman’s word.” Dyson complains that the evidence was insufficient to support the conviction. We think, however, that Dyson’s admission as to how the injury occurred, his prior severe beatings, his direction to his wife to lie at the time the child was admitted to the hospital, and his flight were entirely sufficient to support the conviction, see James v. State, 5 Md. App. 647 , 248 A. 2d 910 . In absence of justification, excuse or some circumstance of mitigation all homicides are presumed to be committed with malice and to be murder in the second degree.

Davis v. State, 237 Md. 97 , 205 A. 2d 254 , cert. denied, 86 S. Ct. 402 , 382 U. S. 945 , 15 L.Ed.2d 354 ; Jacobs v. State, 6 Md. App. 238 ; Brown v. State, 4 Md. App. 261, 267 , 242 A. 2d 570 ; and Williams v. State, 2 Md. App. 170, 176, 234 A. 2d 260 . There is no evidence here of anything in the nature of justification, excuse or mitigation; therefore, the verdict of guilty as to murder in the second degree is amply supported by the evidence. See Fabian v. State, 235 Md. 306 , 201 A. 2d 511 . Dyson next complains of the fact that the photographs of the body of the child were introduced into evidence.

While the basis of the objection is not entirely clear we have ruled that the