People v. Page

165 N.W. 755, 198 Mich. 524, 1917 Mich. LEXIS 911
CourtMichigan Supreme Court
DecidedDecember 27, 1917
DocketDocket No. 157
StatusPublished
Cited by20 cases

This text of 165 N.W. 755 (People v. Page) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Michigan Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Page, 165 N.W. 755, 198 Mich. 524, 1917 Mich. LEXIS 911 (Mich. 1917).

Opinion

Steere, J.

Respondent, Lawrence Page, a young man 22 years of age, was convicted in the superior court of the city of Grand Rapids in Kent county of the murder of his stepgrandfather, Francis M. Sprague, who at the time of his death was living alone at 425 Resell avenue in the westerly outskirts of said city. [526]*526Respondent was arraigned in the superior court on April 22, 1916, under an information containing three counts charging him in varying language with the murder of Sprague, on January 18, 1916. He stood mute to the information, and a plea of not guilty was entered by the court in his behalf. The case was brought to trial before a jury on June 6, 1916. The theory and claim of the prosecution was that respondent killed Sprague while robbing or attempting to rob him when they were alone together in the latter’s home at or about 4 o’clock in the afternoon of January 18, 1916. Sprague’s death was not discovered until shortly after noon on January 20, 1916, when .his dead body was found in his home in a condition indicating conclusively that he had suffered death by violence a considerable time before the fact was known, and the corpus delicti is not questioned. The prosecution could produce no witnesses to the tragedy, and its evidence against respondent was circumstantial. The defense was an alibi. The trial lasted until' June 16, 1916, when the case was submitted, to the jury and a verdict rendered finding defendant guilty of murder in the first degree, for which he was subsequently sentenced to confinement in the branch State prison at Marquette for life.

Respondent’s numerous assignments of error concentrate, in substance, to the four claims of prejudicial conduct and remarks- of the prosecuting attorney during the introduction of testimony and in summing up the case, a fatal variance between the proof of the prosecution and its information, prejudicial admission by the court of incompetent testimony not cured by subsequently striking it out, and failure of the court to instruct the jury that respondent might be found guilty of a lesser crime than murder in the first degree.

[527]*527Francis Sprague was 78 years of age at the time of his death. He was the husband of respondent’s grandmother, with whom he had lived for several years in rooms on the second story of the house where he was living alone at the time he met his death; but under an agreement of separation between them, dated November 30, 1915, she had gone elsewhere to reside, leaving him in occupation of the rooms they formerly occupied together. The place belonged to her, and at the time in question her goods were stored-in the lower part of the house, which was otherwise not in use and locked up; access to the rooms upstairs in which he lived being by an outside iron stairway at the rear of the building. Rosell avenue, which runs northerly and southerly in the westerly part of the city, is most directly reached from the central or business section by Bridge street, which runs east and west with a car line extending along it from Monroe avenue to the west, past Lincoln Park, to Valley avenue. Rosell is the next street west beyond Valley avenue, on higher ground and beyond the end of the car line. It is not a graded street and runs north from Bridge under the slope or near the rise of a height called Bridge Street Hill. Turning north upon it from Bridge street there are no buildings on the right or easterly side of Rosell avenue. On the left or westerly side, the first house is the home of an old couple named Weiner, beyond which, with a vacant lot or two between, is the house in which Sprague lived; just north and close adjacent to which is a house occupied by a family named De Grail, directly opposite whose kitchen door and within six or eight feet rests the foot of the outside stairs at the rear of the Sprague house. The hill rises sharply from the street to the west at the rear of the houses, which are on a so-called terrace considerably above the street level with a rise and walk leading to the rear between the two houses. Sprague was accustomed to [528]*528receive mail in the De Graff mail box, which was on their porch. The upstairs portion of the house which he occupied consisted of two rooms, a front room facing east on Rosell avenue and a back room facing west used for kitchen purposes, connected by a door and small covered landing with the head of the outside stairway. Respondent was familiar with the place and its environments, as well as Sprague’s habits and characteristics, having both visited and lived there at different times. He testified on direct examination that before he went to Ionia prison he had lived up there with his grandmother and Sprague “six months in a stretch.”

Shortly after 12 o’clock on January 20, 1916, one Edward F. Lillie, who had known Sprague for “35 or 40 years,” went to his place of residence, passing to the rear between the Sprague and De Graff houses. It had been snowing, and he noticed there were no tracks. On going up the outside stairs he found a key in the lock of the outside door. He opened the door and saw deceased lying upon the floor apparently dead and in such condition that, without stopping to investigate, he hurried to a drug store at the corner of Valley and Bridge streets, where he telephoned the police department and for a coroner. A police officer named Slater was first on the scene, followed soon by the coroner and others. They found Sprague lying dead on the floor on his back in the rear room next to the entrance from the outside stairway, fully dressed as though he had just been or was going outside, having on his rubbers and a fur-lined overcoat. There was a partition on the south side of this room with a table against it not far from the outer door, upon which were dishes, articles of food, and a hammer with a drop of blood upon it. The body and room were cold. Some water in a pail near the outer door was frozen, and Sprague’s body lay with the head to the southwest towards the [529]*529table in a frozen pool of blood, with the feet to the northeast within three or four feet of the entrance way between the two rooms across which a curtain hung on a rod. Against the wall close to this curtained doorway stood an iron bar about 20 inches long, two inches wide and an inch thick. On the right of the body close to this doorway was a pool of blood in which was frozen the handle of a potato masher. Near it was a pair of bow spectacles and his broken false teeth. The hands lay at his sides with the palms turned up. His tie was disarranged, collar broken in front, with blood on his shirt, collar, overcoat, and the back of his hands. The lapels of his coat were open with a bank book and other papers of no general value resting upon them, and a Grand Rapids Herald dated January 18th lay partially across the body. There was no money, watch, chain, stick pin, or other jewelry upon the body, except a plain band ring on his finger, and no weapon of any kind. A cap lay on the floor in the front room with blood stains and hair on the inside. A screwdriver lay on the floor between the body and outer door. Various serious cuts and' bruises appeared upon the face and head. The autopsy disclosed a cut about an inch long under the left eye, another about two inches long on the forehead extending back with a clean cut wound to the skull, a jagged, crushing wound on the side of the head above the ear, and a fracture of the temporal bone where the lower jaw fits into it. The coroner testified that the organs were normal and death had resulted from this fracture of the skull producing concussion of the brain.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
165 N.W. 755, 198 Mich. 524, 1917 Mich. LEXIS 911, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-page-mich-1917.