State v. Johnson

21 P.2d 813, 37 N.M. 280
CourtNew Mexico Supreme Court
DecidedMarch 28, 1933
DocketNo. 3814.
StatusPublished
Cited by17 cases

This text of 21 P.2d 813 (State v. Johnson) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New Mexico Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Johnson, 21 P.2d 813, 37 N.M. 280 (N.M. 1933).

Opinion

SADLER, Justice.

Defendant prosecutes this appeal from a conviction of murder in the first degree.

About the hour of midnight on November 15, 1931, the victim of this tragedy, a young lady eighteen years of age, was criminally assaulted and murdered in her bedroom at the home of her mother on Griffin street in the city of Santa Fé. Near the same hour a brutal assault with a hammer was made up.on the person of Oscar Churchill, night man at Andrews Garage on Water street in said city, the cash register of the garage looted, and a car belonging to the garage stolen.

A few hours thereafter, Thomas C. Johnson, a negro attendant at the garage in question, was arrested in Albuquerque in the stolen car. He readily admitted the assault upon Churchill, looting of the cash register, and theft of the automobile, but expressly denied all knowledge of the above-mentioned criminal assault and slaying. He was returned to Santa Fé and lodged in the penitentiary for safe-keeping.

The incriminatory facts developed against the defendant at the trial, and which the jury would have been warranted in accepting, are as follows: The mother of deceased was aroused by a bright light shining on her face about the time of the crime against her daughter. She proceeded from her bedroom through the living room to the door of the daughter’s room. She found the room brightly lighted, and observed a stout, stoekily built man, garbed in what she described as a “white and black striped” suit, standing beside her daughter’s bed, with his back toward the mother. The mother screamed and apparently fainted, as she was able to recall nothing of what transpired thereafter. It was the theory of the state that she was struck with a green vase in the hands of defendant, broken fragments of which were found scattered over the living room and the daughter’s bedroom. The mother bore evidences of having been struck with something. Fingerprints of defendant’s left middle finger and right thumb were found at the scene of the crime, each on a separate and distinct fragment of this broken vase. The fragments were identified as parts of a glass vase belonging in the household.

Although not residing in the vicinity, defendant was found loitering in proximity to deceased’s home one morning about 1:30 o’clock in early September preceding the tragedy, and was unable to give to the officers accosting him a satisfactory explanation of his presence in the neighborhood. Again, he was seen late on the very night of the tragedy, proceeding down Johnson street just west of its intersection with Grant avenue, not far removed from deceased’s home, and, when asked by the witness, who knew and recognized him, what he was doing over there “this time of night,” he replied: “I got a job over here.”

When arrested, defendant’s outer garment was a suit of white and blue striped coveralls which the mother said resembled the suit worn by the man discovered by her in her daughter’s bedroom. He wore underneath the coveralls two top shirts, a pair of corduroy pants, shorts, and undershirt. He also had on his person a poeketknife such as could have been used to inflict the fatal wound — ■ a stab through the left temple which fractured the skull and penetrated the brain. According to testimony in the case, defendant claimed it was a knife he used to repair tires, and stated that he had washed or cleaned it in his room. He admitted visiting his room just before fleeing Santa F\5 in the stolen car. The deceased was shown to have bled freely as a result of the fatal wound and criminal assault. Different garments worn by defendant at the time of his arrest contained blood splotches, and his hands were •bloody. These blood splotches were explained by him as having been received in dragging the body of Churchill from the scene of the assault in the garage to the place in the garage where his unconscious form was later discovered. It was a.fact that Churchill had also bled freely from head injuries inflicted upon him by the hammer in defendant’s hands.

The 'body of deceased when discovered disclosed that a strip of cloth had been forced into her mouth as a gag and tied behind her head, rendering it likely that the hands and nails of her assailant contacted the lips of the deceased. Saturday, the day before the homicide, deceased had purchased a tube of lipstick known as “Kiss-Proof.” Upon the afternoon of November 15th, the date of the homicide, deceased was shown to have lipstick on her lips. A lipstick of the “Kiss-Proof” brand was taken from the drawer of the dresser in the mother’s room on November 17th by one of the officers working on the case.

Solubility tests by an expert on slides used in connection with microscopic examinations disclosed that débris taken from underneath the finger nails of deceased and defendant each contained, in the clumps of skin particles found in said débris, a number of small bright carmine red particles, highly transparent, which did not dissolve in either the salt solution or water, and which were identical in color, appearance, and refraction. A like test of débris taken from underneath the expert’s finger nails failed to disclose these bright carmine red particles. Continuing his test with the lipstick as a control, the expert made a light smear from same across his left hand, and rubbed the fingers of his right hand across the smear. Some eight hours later, after having washed his hands and had them in soapy water more than the ordinary number of times, and after having used his hands in rubbing hair tonic into his hair, he gave débris taken from underneath the nails of his fingers on the right' hand the same test, and found imbedded in the particles of skin a number of bright carmine red colored highly refractile particles which he described as identical in “color, shape, refraction and appearance” with those found in the débris taken from the nails of deceased and defendant.

In addition, this expert found in the débris from underneath deceased’s nails several plant fibers colored blue, which he described as identical in appearance with blue cotton fibers scraped by him from the blue and white coveralls worn by defendant on the night in question.

At the time of his arrest in Albuquerque, and while defendant was being questioned by one of the officers, and before the name of the party hereinafter referred to had been mentioned, defendant, referring to the person, who, as a witness, as it subsequently developed, was to identify him as the person he saw near the scene of the homicide late on the night thereof, compared the officer to such person, and stated this person, the subsequent witness, “would say anything to hang a man.” So far as the record discloses, the officers did not at that time know defendant had been seen in the vicinity of deceased’s home a short time prior to the homicide.

A car washer, an article in common use around garages, was found underneath the bed of deceased.

As against this damaging and highly incriminatory evidence, the defendant denied all knowledge of the crime committed at the home of deceased and the concomitant parts thereof.

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Bluebook (online)
21 P.2d 813, 37 N.M. 280, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-johnson-nm-1933.