State v. Hagert

58 N.E.2d 399, 41 Ohio Law. Abs. 515, 1944 Ohio App. LEXIS 547
CourtOhio Court of Appeals
DecidedMay 2, 1944
DocketNo. 19598
StatusPublished

This text of 58 N.E.2d 399 (State v. Hagert) 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. Hagert, 58 N.E.2d 399, 41 Ohio Law. Abs. 515, 1944 Ohio App. LEXIS 547 (Ohio Ct. App. 1944).

Opinion

OPINION

EY DOYLE, J.

The appellant stands convicted of murder in the first de[517]*517gree and is under sentence to death in the electric chair.

He prays for a reversal of the judgment and presents as his reasons the following assignments of error:

1. That the court erred in the admission (in evidence) of the sanity verdict returned in the preliminary hearing.

2. That the court erred in the admission of evidence of prior crimes, including the testimony of the Lees boy and the Buchanan boy.

3. That the court erred in permitting expert witnesses to give their opinion that the defendant had the mental capacity to form an intent to commit murder in the first degree.

4. That the court erred in the admission in evidence of photographs of both the Collins boys after the homicide.

5. That the court erred in the admission in evidence of the written confession as made out of court.

6. That the court erred in admitting other evidence offered by the state over defendant’s objection.

7. That the court erred in the exclusion of evidence offered by the defendant, to which the defendant duly excepted.

8. That the court erred in charging the jury, and particularly in the refusual of the court to charge on the degrees of homicide other than first and second degree murder.

9. That the court erred in overruling defendant’s motion for a new trial on the ground that the verdict of the jury is against the manifest weight of the evidence and is contrary to law.

10. That the court erred in overruling defendant’s motion to set aside the verdict of the jury on the preliminary hearing.

11. For other errors apparent on the face of the record.

The evidence discloses that on August 11, 1943 a 9 year old boy by the name of Buchanan had disappeared while on his way to Lakewood Park in Cuyahoga County; police search commenced and on the following morning he was found lying in a semi-conscious condition in a wooded area near Bay Village. Efficient police investigation, coupled with the assistance of a newspaper reporter, culminated in the arrest of the accused, a 17 year old boy who had been under observation by the authorities as a psychopathic case and who had also been confined in a state institution for delinquent boys.

After a denial of any knowledge of the 9 year old boy, the accused subsequently admitted that he had kidnapped him, and in the course of the examination then said, “the gun you just took away from me is the one I killed the other two boys with.” He referred to a .32 caliber Colt automatic gun taken from his person by the officers. He thereupon conducted the [518]*518officers to a wooded section of Bay Village, a westerly suburb of Cleveland and to the bodies of James and Charles Collins, twins of the age of twelve. The children had been shot to death.

There is evidence in the record to prove that the accused had committed unnatural sexual assaults to-wit, sodomy, up'on the kidnapped Buchanan boy the day previous to the day of the homocides; that prior to this he had likewise perpetrated the crime of rectal sodomy upon a young 12 year old boy by the name of Lees. The evidence further justifies the conclusion that he attempted the same crime upon one of the victims, and upon being repulsed he took his life. He then ordered his second victim into the woods and killed him in the same manner.

The detail of events immediately preceding the homicides revealed in the confession is ably and accurately summarized by counsel for the defense m the following language:

“About 11 o’clock, on the morning of this date, the defendant was operating an automobile in an easterly direction in Rocky River and saw two boj^s at the side of the street who were apparently thumbing a ride. The defendant turned his automobile around and went back and took them in. He drove them to what is known as Sadler Road which runs southerly, from Lake Road in Bay Village. * * * As to the circumstances of the homicide we know nothing, except what is contained in the purported confession of the defendant and statements which he made to the psychiatrists who examined him. In his confession, the defendant states that after se,eing them he turned around and picked them up. The boys said they were going to some golf course. After getting in the car one boy made the remark, ‘onward Jeeves’ and the defendant then states that he put a gun on them; that he went down Lake Road and then turned down a side road. He told one of them, ‘come with me’ and told the other one that if he tried to get away he would shoot him. He then took one boy into the woods and, after so doing, the defendant stopped, and, after stopping, he told the boy to keep walking. When the boy was about fifty feet away he shot him. The defendant then returned to the car and got the second boy out of the car and told him to come with him. He walked him back to the woods a little ways and the defendant stopped. He states that the boy did not know that he, the defendant, had stopped and kept on walking. When the boy was near a turn in the path, he [519]*519shot him in the back of the head. The defendant then went back into his car and went home.”

Supplementing the recital of event in the confession are the additional statements made to doctors and officials which depict in somewhat detail the defendant’s sadistic and sodomitical orgies; and further, the evidence, as heretofore stated, which justifies the conclusion that the first boy was killed when he repulsed the defendant’s criminal advances.

There is further evidence in the record which justifies the conclusion that the second boy was killed for the purpose of silencing forever the lips of an incriminating witness.

After the accused was indicted, doctors were appointed by the court to investigate his sanity under authority of §§13441, 13441-1 GC. He then was accorded a jury trial for the purpose of determining his sanity. The verdict found him to be presently sane. Shortly thereafter he was arraigned on the indictment and entered a plea of “not guilty by reason of insanity.” The jury trial on the indictment resulted in a verdict of murder in the first degree without a recommendation of mercy and upon the overruling of a motion for a new trial, judgment was entered and the defendant sentenced to death.

At this point it is proper to note that the defendant was represented by two eminent lawyers who had been appointed by the court. They deserve the highest praise for their extraordinary devotion to the interests of their client and for their indefatigable and able labor in preserving for him every legal right to which he wás entitled.

1. The first error assigned relates to the admission in evidence of the verdict of the jury in the preliminary sanity hearing.

It is argued that the evidence is sufficient to prove the defendant a victim of dementia praecox, and that while one afflicted with this condition may exhibit extraordinary intelligence, yet he may be afflicted with a definite psyschosis of such a character as to be irresponsible for his conduct.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Bradshaw v. State
166 N.E. 701 (Ohio Court of Appeals, 1928)
State v. Hensley
31 Ohio Law. Abs. 348 (Ohio Court of Appeals, 1939)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
58 N.E.2d 399, 41 Ohio Law. Abs. 515, 1944 Ohio App. LEXIS 547, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-hagert-ohioctapp-1944.