Case ID: ny-st-rep_71/html/0357-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Finch, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

The People, Resp’t, v. David Hampton, App’lt.
    
      (Court of Appeals,
    
    
      Filed December 4, 1894.)
    
    Appeal-Facts.
    It is the province of the jury to determine questions of fact and decide between conflicting inferences, and the duty of the court of appeals to interfere arises only when it can see that the verdict is clearly against the weight of evidence, or appears to have been influenced by passion, prejudice, mistake or corruption.
    Appeal from judgment of the court of general sessions of the peace of the city and county of Hew York, entered upon a verdict, convicting 'defendant of the felony of murder in the first degree.
    
      Robert J. Haire, for app’lt;
    
      John D. Lindsay, for resp’t.
   Finch, J.

The defendant appeals from a judgment rendered on a convicting him of murder in the first degree. The case has been submitted upon briefs and without oral argument. That Annetta Ahrens was murdered by some person with such deliberation and premeditation as to constitute the crime charged is conceded. That the defendant was its perpetrator rests as a fact wholly upon circumstantial evidence, and the contention now is that it was insufficient to warrant the conclusion of the jury. It must not be forgotten that it is their province to determine questions of fact, and decide between conflicting inferences, and that ear duty to interfere arises only when we can see that the verdict is clearly against the weight of evidence, or appears to have been influenced by passion, prejudice, mistake or corruption. People v. Taylor, 138 N. Y. 398; 52 St. Rep. 914. I have read the evidence given carefully, and do not see how the jury could have reached any different conclusion. The mass of testimonj'- is much too great to be repeated, but an outline of the principal incriminating facts will sufficiently show the ground of the verdict.

Mrs. Ahrens was last seen alive between eight and nine o’clock in the evening of December 29th, 1892. She was a widow, about seventy or eighty years of age, miserly and penuric us in her habits, often having considerable sums of money in her possession, and with a passion for gold coin, which she refused to spend and would not deposit in the bank, although sums of considerable amount were credited upon her bank books. She occupied two rooms, the smaller of which was a bedroom and held a wardrobe, with a few other articles of furniture: On the morning of December 30th she was found dead in her bed, with the marks of a blow on her face and her throat cut so that her head was almost severed from her body. Everything in the bedroom was in disorder and confusion. The door to the outer room leading from the hall had been burst open and stood partly ajar. In a bureau in that room a small amount of money was found undistured, but much less than the woman was in the habit of keeping about her. On the washstand was a knife with' a wooden handle, on which was the word “ bread,” in raised letters, the steel blade being about eight inches in length and stamped on the metal with the words “ bread knife.”. It was stained with blood, some of which had dripped from it upon the stand. That the murder was committed with that weapon is, of course, a natural and obvious inference. That knife was very clearly identified as the property of the defendant. He took it away from Mrs. Johnson’s in a bag on the 15th of December, having at the time no other articles of property except a plate, a dish, a cup and saucer and some small amount of clothing, and having been turned out by Mrs. Johnson because unable to pay his rent. He went with his wife directly to Mrs. Ahrens’ house, where he stayed till December 26th, or three days before the murder. He there occupied a room adjoining the sitting room of Mrs. Ahrens, separated from it by a partition in which was a glass door. The deceased had covered this with wrapping paper to prevent observation, but a corner had been torn off, leaving an opening through which it was possible for the defendant in his room to see what Mrs. Ahrens was doing in hers. On Christmas day she found that she had been robbed of about eighty dollars, and suspected the defendant as the thief. After his arrest he confessed that he stole the money on Christmas eve but claimed he had never robbed her since. "The money was taken from tho wardrobe according to Mrs. Ahrens’ account of it. Two days later he was seen drunk and excited and with a wad of bills in his hand and said there was plenty more where that came from. On the evening of that day he left Mrs. Ahrens, his few things having been put out in hall, and took a room with Mrs. Randolph. On Thursday, December 29th, he told her that he was going away and his wife would settle with her. He had given his name as David Johnson, and said he had just come from the west and was going back again. On the evening of that day, which was the night of the homicide, and somewhere between nine and eleven o’clock, he was in a saloon with a roll of bills, amounting to something over eighty dollars, treating everybody and buying champagne, whisky and cigars. At about one o'clock he left for his room, asking Ms companion to tell his landlady that he was gone away with horses, and making an arrangement to go with him the next day to Newark. In the morning he gave the witness, Papisco, a five-dollar gold piece with which to buy tickets, in Newark bought clothes paying out two five-dollar gold pieces and a, five-dollar bill, and later, in Stone’s, he produced a twenty-doilar gold piece. His wanderings about- Newark are detailed, and there he was finally arrested hiding under a false name. One other circumstance was added to the proof. The murdered woman’s hands were observed to be lifted toward her head, and in the palm of one was found a finger-stall or small bandage for the finger. The proof shows that before the murder the defendant had such a bandage on his finger, and at the trial that found in the dead woman’s hand was put upon his finger and fitted perfectly.

There was very much more of the evidence, but what I have stated is the substantial outline. The prisoner gave no explanation of his possession of the money and the gold coin, and falsely ■denied the ownership of the knife. That the accused had a knowledge and opportunity adequate to the commission of the crime; that he had once already robbed the deceased, and took his plunder from her wardrobe; that his extreme poverty furnished a motive for the act; that he owned the weapon found with blood upon it at the scene of the homicide; that the morning after the murder he left the state and went to Newark without any apparent reason; that while there he had in his possession a considerable amount of money, at least thirty dollars of which was in gold coin; that there he bought new clothing and threw the old into a privy vault; that he endeavored to hide away and conceal himself to escape arrest, were all facts more or less strongly proved, and which called for some explanation consistent with innocence to break their force. None whatever was given. These were the main facts, but surrounded with many details of conduct and .conversation pointing in the same direction. The proof was quite sufficient to warrant an inference of guilt, and the case was one over which the jury could not long hesitate.

None of the exceptions to the charge of the court need discussion. They raised no legal question about which there can be any doubt. It is our duty to affirm the judgment