State v. Gardner

25 Ohio Law. Abs. 51, 1937 Ohio Misc. LEXIS 1105
CourtOhio Court of Appeals
DecidedMay 5, 1937
DocketNo 2746
StatusPublished

This text of 25 Ohio Law. Abs. 51 (State v. Gardner) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Ohio Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Gardner, 25 Ohio Law. Abs. 51, 1937 Ohio Misc. LEXIS 1105 (Ohio Ct. App. 1937).

Opinion

OPINION

By HORNBECK, J.

Defendant was indicted for the murder of Arch B. Coyner while in the perpetration of a robbery. A plea of not guilty was entered, a special venire of jurymen drawn, and after the members of the panel were in the court room preparatory to the selection of a jury the defendant, after indicating a purpose to waive a jury trial, was fully apprised of his rights by the presiding judge. The waiver of a jury trial in writing was taken according to the statute, §13442-4, GC, and thereupon three of the judges of the Common Pleas Court, chosen as provided by the section, tried the defendant, who again entered a plea of not guilty generally and the further plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. After trial had the court found the defendant guilty of murder as charged in the indictment without recommendation of mercy.

Motions for new trial were duly filed, consisting of eleven branches, requesting the court to state in writing the conclusions of fact arrived at on the record separately from the conclusions of law and in arrest of judgment on the ground and for the reason that the facts stated in the indictment do not constitute an offense. After overruling all of these motions the court pronounced a sentence of death upon the defendant. From the judgment of the trial court an appeal on questions of law is prosecuted.

The brief of the appellant assigns the following five grounds of error:

(1) That the record of the proceedings in the court below does not show a specific intent to commit the crime charged.

(2) That the defendant below, by reason of intoxication both by liquor and marajuana cigarettes and his mental and physical condition was incapable of forming such intent.

(3) That the court below erred in its rejection of the opinions of the experts.

(4) That the defendant below was not tried by a jury of his peers as required by the Constitution of the State of Ohio.

(5) That the trial court erred in refusing the defendant’s request for the court to state in writing the conclusions of fact found separately from the conclusions of law.

On the night of January 25,1935, at about 10:45, the defendant in his work clothes and with a cap pulled well down over his head, walked into the Seneca Hotel, probably' from Grant Avenue, approached the desk, behind which stood Mr Coyner, the clerk. Defendant pulled a revolver out of his right hip pocket, ordered Mr. Coyner to give him the money from the cash drawer, with which request Mr. Coyner immediately complied. Defendant took the money, and as Mr. Coyner turned around with his hands behind him, defendant shot him on the left side in the region of the heart, from the effects of which shot he soon died. Defendant then left the hotel. As he was doing so he menaced several people who were in the lobby with his gun, walked from the hotel into a nearby street, threw the gun away, went to a drug store, had a coca-cola, then to a saloon where he drank some beer, purchased three bottles, took an owl car to his room, which was in the residence of a Mr. Carper. Mr. and Mrs. Carper ,and defendant drank the beer. Defendant went to bed about three o’clock in the morning. Either in the morning before retiring or after he awakened from his sleep he hid the proceeds of the robbery, $61.00, in or about the stove in the home of Mr. Carper. A few days thereafter he left Columbus, Mr. Carper taking him to Dayton. Later he returned to Columbus for a short time, then went to Huntington, West' Virginia, where he was employed and finally to Jacksonville, Florida, where he was apprehended. He made a confession there to officers of the police force of Columbus who went down to return him to Columbus and later, upon his return, made a second confession. Harry Carson, Chief of Detectives, testified to [53]*53the statements by way of confession made by the defendant on August 24, 1936, in police headquarters, Columbus, Ohio.

In his confessions the defendant said that he was drunk on the night of the killing and that he had been drinking heavily iall that day, although there was no mention made at any time, either in his confession in Florida or in Columbus, that he •was under any influence other than that of alcohol. He stated in his confessions that he did not purpose to shoot Mr. Coyner but meant to miss him and shot with the intention of frightening him, although he said that he shot because he thought as Mr. Coyner had put his hands behind him, that he meant to press a signal bell.

The defense claimed that defendant was addicted to the use of marajuana, which he smoked both in the form of cigarettes and as powder in a pipe; that he began to smoke in Chicago in 1931 and that he used it until he came to Columbus and that he continued to smoke during his residence there; that on the day of the killing he had smoked a half dozen cigarettes during the afternoon and evening; that he had taken some liquor and that he was drunk with marajuana and liquor when he committed the homicide; that Mr. Coyner looked to be far away from defendant and very small, caused by the effects of his drunken condition; that he had no purpose or intent to kill Coyner and that he had not the mental capacity to form a purpose to kill, a requisite under the indictment.

There was considerable testimony as to the unusual appearance of the defendant on the night of the killing, both before and after its commission. One witness said that his eyes rolled noticeably; another that they stood out very prominently; that he was in an excited and abnormal state of mind.

Instances of unusual conduct on his part appear in the record. A Mr. Browning, a school teacher from Chicago, who seemed to be a reputable witness, testified that the defendant was addicted to the use of marajuana; that on one occasion he had attacked him, Mr. Browning. Two young women testified to an occasion when they had visited the defendant in Chicago. He had taken them on a trip to see the night life of the city and suddenly snatched a five dollar bill from the pocketbook of one of the young women, took the keys from their automobile, left for a couple of hours, returned and on the way to his room instructed Miss Drake, who was driving, to speed up and to turn suddenly to (he right. She complied with the instructions and then came to a sudden stop and discovered. that if they had not so stopped they would have been precipitated into a lake. Mrs. Eck, with whom the defendant had roomed, also told of peculiar conduct on the part of defendant, of abuse and cursing which he had directed to lier. Miss Edwards, one of the young women who had gone to Chicago to visit the defendant, told of his return to her home when an altercation took place wherein he threw a plate at her head, narrowly missing her.

Most of these occurrences were attributed by those who testified to drunkenness produced by alcohol and all of them could be explained upon this assumption.

The defendant insisted that he did not recall all that had occurred on the night of the killing, denied some parts of his confession, but in the main told the same story on the witness stand as he did in bo'.h of his confessions.

Two alienists testified, Dr. George T. Harding and Dr. Robert C. Tarbell. Neither would say that the defendant was legally insane. Dr. Harding’s testimony probably will bear the interpretation that in his judgment the defendant did not have the mental capacity at the time of the homicide to form a purpose to kill. It is doubtful if Dr. Tarbell’s testimony will bear such interpretation.

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Related

Hallinger v. Davis
146 U.S. 314 (Supreme Court, 1892)
In Re Belt
159 U.S. 95 (Supreme Court, 1895)
Turk v. State
194 N.E. 425 (Ohio Court of Appeals, 1934)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
25 Ohio Law. Abs. 51, 1937 Ohio Misc. LEXIS 1105, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-gardner-ohioctapp-1937.