People v. Robinson

199 N.W. 622, 228 Mich. 64, 1924 Mich. LEXIS 740
CourtMichigan Supreme Court
DecidedJuly 24, 1924
DocketDocket No. 90.
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 199 N.W. 622 (People v. Robinson) 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. Robinson, 199 N.W. 622, 228 Mich. 64, 1924 Mich. LEXIS 740 (Mich. 1924).

Opinion

Wiest, J.

Defendant-was charged with the crime of murder, tried in the recorders’ court for the city of Detroit, and convicted of manslaughter, sentenced, and by writ of error brings the case here for review.

About 10 o’clock the night of May 23, 1923, on Benton street in the city of Detroit, defendant shot Chester Monaghan, causing his death within a few hours. Defendant operated a restaurant at 691 Benton street and, the night of the killing, claims she went into-her living room on the way to a bedroom where she kept money in a trunk, to get change for a $5 bill, and in the living room found Monaghan and another man, both strangers to her, and asked them what they were doing there and went to the bedroom and came out with five $1 bills in her hand. She testified:

“When I got back in my sitting room, they seemed to be still standing in the same place, seemed to be whispering to each other. One of them seemed like he was drinking. I said to them, ‘You have to get out of here,’ and I walked over to the door and opened the door. The little one beckoned to the big one to go out. The large one started out. The little one, taking me by the hand, grabbed my hand and shoved me back over to the table. When he did that, they both run out the door, the large one—

. “Q. What happened to the money that was in your hand?

“A. He grabbed the money out of my hand.

“After he grabbed the money, he shoved me back and run out of the door. The large one, he had been going out. I went to run out behind him, and the smaller one ran by the large one and got out to the sidewalk, and I was just on the platform of the door then when he got out and ran back up in a corner *68 and grabbed something; I saw his hand go back like that, and I heard him hit up the side of the window right by the door, and he smashed the window, and I ran back in the house, I got my revolver out of the drawer, and started to go out the second time. I took my revolver because he had my money, and to defend myself until I came to an officer. So I called officer twice. I did not see an officer. I went out the way they went, but did not know I was so close behind them, but I was intending to watch them until I got to Hastings so I could put an officer on them. When I got out to about the second door, the large one stopped and backed himself up against an entrance way past Chester’s tailor shop. The smaller one turned around in my face and says, — he cursed and says,.‘Don’t follow me; if you do I will kill you.’ He ran his hand in his pocket. I says ‘Don’t come up on me like that.’ He still leaned towards me. When he did that, with his hand in his pocket, I said ‘Get back, get back.’ He did not get back, so I shot. I shot one time, to scare him off. I did not intend to kill him or shoot him. When I shot him, he turned, took his arm up and walked right away from me.”

It is claimed the court frequently criticized the conduct of counsel for defendant “in a manner calculated to disparage him in the eyes of the jury.” We will mention but one incident. When the prosecutor was examining a witness the court asked: “Do you want the restaurant marked there by this photographer?” and the prosecutor answered: “Why, yes,” thereupon the court said: “Well, mark it and go on. What are you waiting for? Afraid of Colombo?” to which the prosecutor replied: “No, I am not afraid of Colombo, don’t worry about that.” Counsel for defendant also turns this into a spurring of the prosecutor to assail him and thinks the hint was taken. The left-handed compliment to counsel inspired the undignified retort by the prosecutor, but that it made another man of the prosecutor, to defendant’s disadvantage, passes belief.

*69 We have examined the other remarks complained of and, while some of them were injudicious, to say they played any serious part in the determination of the grave questions involved would lend them an unmerited dignity. It is claimed that,

“at the close of the people’s case, the undisputed testimony showed that Monaghan had robbed the defendant in her own home, and that the defendant to save her money, and to apprehend the felon, shot him. Under such circumstances, it was the clear duty of the trial court to direct a verdict of not guilty.”

This overlooks the testimony of Morris Vinikoit that defendant said to Monaghan: “You ain’t going to break any more windows in my house,” hit him over the head with the gun and then shot him.

Defendant invokes the old law of hue and cry. The ancient English law of hue and cry or clamor popularis with amercement of dilatory hundreds and award to the captor of a felon has never prevailed in this jurisdiction, although we do accept the common-law right granted one robbed of money from his person to apprehend the robber or follow and cry for his arrest. We spend no further time upon this subject, for under defendant’s version of the shooting the killing was not done to prevent an escape but in self-defense. The evidence was closed near the end of the court day, and counsel for the prisoner asked that the argument be put off until the next day in order that he might consult his trial notes and prepare his argument and requests to charge. This was refused, and error is assigned thereon. The trial of the case consumed less than a day and there was nothing about the evidence requiring resort to notes to recall all of it. It was discretionary with the trial judge to proceed or postpone the trial until the next day and his refusal of the request discloses no error.

*70 Section 5, Act No. 369, Pub. Acts 1919 (Comp. Laws Supp. 1922, § 14725 [5]), does not limit the hours for holding sessions of the court and the trial judge had an undoubted right to continue after the hour of 4 o’clock. This is not questioned by defendant’s counsel, but it is insisted that, when the trial judge intends to hold beyond the usual hour of adjournment for the day counsel should be warned thereof a sufficient time in advance to be able to prepare requests to charge. The brevity of the trial caught counsel without prepared requests to charge, and, considering the nature of the offense charged against defendant and the time of day, it might have been well to have granted counsel a reasonable time in which to prepare written requests, but we are not prepared to hold that it was reversible error to let the trial move to its close without stopping for such purpose. We must assume that counsel was aware of the nature of the defense and the legal questions necessarily involved and he should have come to the trial prepared for just such a possible situation.

The information charged the killing as of May 23, 1923, and, it is claimed, Monaghan did not die until shortly after midnight of that day, and such variance is fatal under the holding in Chapman v. People, 39 Mich. 357. The point is without merit. People v. Sharac, 209 Mich. 249.

We find no support in the record for the assignment of error that the trial judge was not in the court room during the argument of defendant’s counsel to the jury and had to be called from his private office to rule on an objection. We, therefore, decline to consider the point.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
199 N.W. 622, 228 Mich. 64, 1924 Mich. LEXIS 740, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-robinson-mich-1924.