State v. Rogers
State v. Rogers
Opinion of the Court
The defendant has appealed, after a trial to a jury, from his conviction on a charge of murder in the first degree. He was charged under § 8350 of the General Statutes with the shooting and killing of Dorothy Kennedy in the perpetration of a robbery of the package store operated by her and her husband, Joseph Kennedy, in West Haven. No recommendation for mercy having been made by the jury, the defendant was sentenced to the punishment of death. He has assigned error in sixteen particulars having to do with his trial. In brief and argument his counsel have grouped them in four categories. As thus presented, the issues concern (1) the court’s refusal to grant a motion for change of venue, (2) certain rulings of the court as to the legality of
The state claimed to have proved the following facts: Dorothy Kennedy was shot and killed on November 21, 1953, in the West Shore Package Store at 143 Ocean Avenue in West Haven. She and her husband owned and operated the store. She was alone in the store at 7:30 p.m. on the day in question, and within a space of minutes thereafter the tragedy had taken place and the cash register was rifled, about $60 being taken. On January 9, 1954, the New Haven police were seeking to arrest the defendant on charges of attempted robbery, breaking and entering and theft committed that day at the Travelers Hotel in New Haven. That evening, officers located the defendant sitting in his car on Oak Street in New Haven. He had in his possession a .38 caliber Smith and Wesson revolver, which, it later appeared, he had stolen from his nephew before the shooting on November 21, 1953. He was arrested and presented in the City Court of New Haven on January 13, 1954, where he waived examination through private counsel and
The defendant claimed to have proved the following: On January 30, 1954, in the evening, while he was still a bound-over prisoner at the jail, he was brought to the state’s attorney’s office and questioned by the police. His request to see his counsel was denied. When he disclaimed any knowledge of the shooting of Mrs. Kennedy, he was told that unless he confessed his wife would be brought down to police headquarters for questioning and their foster children would be sent to the children’s building. He then gave a statement to the police which was offered and received in evidence. The following morning, January 31, the coroner by telephone instructed the sheriff to permit no one to see the defendant. Thereafter, his private counsel sought to see him, but opportunity was denied by the state’s attorney. At noon on January 31, the defendant was taken to the coroner’s office, was questioned and gave a statement which was later offered and admitted in evidence. The statements made by the defendant were so tainted by lack of due process of law as to be involuntary.
The defendant made two motions for a change of venue. Both were denied. The basis of the motions was the widespread publicity given the killing of
The second group of errors concerns the admission of the statements made by the defendant to the police and to the coroner, his so-called confessions, and the court’s charge to the jury with respect to their consideration of them. As to the former, the
The defendant had been lodged in the county jail on a mittimus issued in the City Court of New Haven when he was bound over to the Superior Court to await charges arising out of his arrest on January 9, 1954, in connection with an attempted robbery at the Travelers Hotel. Proper court authorization should have been secured before the defendant was
As to the claimed errors in the charge as given and in the refusal to charge as requested, the essential claim is that the court should have specifically charged the jury that the removal of the defendant from the county jail to the state’s attorney’s office and to the hearing before the coroner and the refusal to permit counsel to see him at the jail were illegal and that the jury should consider these facts in deciding whether the confessions were voluntary or should be disregarded as involuntary.
The question that the jury had to decide in this connection was whether the impact of the officers’ conduct on the mind of the defendant was such as was likely to result in an involuntary or untrue statement. This impact would be the same whether the conduct was lawful or unlawful. Consequently, it would not have assisted the jury in their decision of the question to have been told that the conduct was unlawful. Under the circumstances of this case the charge given was correct and adequate for the guidance of the jury.
It is a play upon words to argue that the defendant was prejudiced by the court’s charge discussing an attempt as well as a completed perpetration of a robbery. Whatever was done on the evening of November 21, 1953, involved the robbery of Mrs. Kennedy who, with her husband, owned the money in the cash register. Whether she was killed before the money was taken or whether she was killed
The denial of the defendant’s motion for a mistrial offers the only remaining question which requires discussion. It appears that Vera Evans, a witness called by the defendant, testified that she had known him for thirty-two years, that he had been hospi
We have reviewed the several other rulings enumerated in the final grouping of errors. The defendant’s exceptions to those rulings have no merit. See State v. Donahue, 141 Conn. 656, 667, 109 A.2d 364.
There is no error.
In this opinion Inglis, C. J., Baldwin and Daly, Js., concurred.
Dissenting Opinion
(dissenting). I am in accord with that part of the opinion which deals with the court’s denial of the motions for a change of venue and for a mistrial. But I am in disagreement with the ultimate result reached by my colleagues because of the court’s refusal to charge, as requested, concerning the so-called confessions.
The defendant had submitted certain requests in writing in order to meet the following factual situation, which the jury might reasonably have accepted
Beginning on January 30, the authorities investigating the death of Mrs. Kennedy indulged in a series of illegal acts affecting the defendant. These acts culminated in his giving the two alleged confessions. The way it came about was this: About noon on January 30, the police took the defendant from the county jail and brought him to the state’s attorney’s office. Upon arriving there, he was told for the first time that he was to be questioned about the death of Mrs. Kennedy. He immediately asked to see his lawyer. Not only was this request refused but he was thereafter subjected to a prolonged interrogation from approximately 1 p.m. until the early morning hours of the following day. Only after the police had threatened to take his sick wife into custody and to turn Ms and his wife’s foster children over to the juvenile authorities, and had pretended to make two telephone calls to put that threat into effect, did the defendant reverse Ms previous persistent denials and involve himself in the killing of Mrs. Kennedy.
On the morning of January 31, after the defendant
The defendant filed a written request to charge.
The removal of the defendant on January 30 and his detention for over twelve hours in the state’s attorney’s office were clearly illegal. So too were his removal from jail and his detention in the coroner’s office on the following day. While the investigating authorities have the duty of attempting to solve crime and of bringing criminals to trial, that does not confer upon them the right to use unlawful measures to attain their end. See State v. Marquardt, 139 Conn. 1, 89 A.2d 219. Those who become suspect do not thereby become the chattels, so to speak, of the investigators. The illegal practices in the instance under discussion cannot be condoned, even though they may have conformed to a long-established custom of the county and were pursued in an effort to ascertain the murderer of Mrs. Kennedy. Until legal process, issuing from a proper source, superseded the mittimus under which the defendant was to be safely kept within the jail, the investigators had no legal right to bring him, as they did, before either the state’s attorney or the coroner.
However, if the two removals of the defendant and the two detentions were the only illegal acts perpetrated on him, one might deplore them without necessarily challenging the voluntariness of the confessions that followed. But where we are met with orders barring an accused from conferring with his counsel, we reach what seems to me to be constitutional illegality. See Stroble v. California, 343 U.S. 181, 198, 72 S. Ct. 599, 96 L. Ed. 872. Such orders involve the denial of the due process guaranteed by the fourteenth amendment to the federal constitution. See Pennsylvania ex rel. Herman v. Claudy, 350 U.S. 116, 76 S. Ct. 223, 100 L. Ed. 126. The court should have granted the defendant’s request
The request read as follows: “In determining what weight you should give to the confessions of the accused, you must determine whether they were given voluntarily and if you find that they were in any respect involuntary you may disregard all or any part of them. In determining their voluntariness and the weight that you should give to them, you may take into account the following fadtors: (a) The transportation of the accused to the office of the State’s Attorney on January 30, 1954, was illegal and improper. . . . (b) The transportation of the accused to the Coroner’s hearing on January 31, 1954, was illegal and improper. . . . (f) It was illegal and improper to deny the accused access to counsel, if you find that he was so denied, on January 30 and 31, 1954.”
Reference
- Full Case Name
- State of Connecticut v. Harold D. Rogers
- Cited By
- 42 cases
- Status
- Published