Evening star., 1933-11-06
MAI. SHEPARD GETS
NEW Staying TRIAL
High Court Sets Aside Off,
GERS Conviction for Murder
of His Wife.
Nv the AsSoriated presS

By the Associated Press.
Maj. Charles A. Shepard, Army sur
geon. won in the Supreme Court today
in his fight to set aside his conviction
for the murder of his wife Zenana on
the Fort Riley. Kans., military reserva-
ton, and his sentence to life impris-
onment.
The decision of the high court will
have the effect of giving Maj. Shepard
a new trial.
The court said the evidence offered
that Mrs. Shepard had stated her hus-
band had poisoned her had been i'm
properly admitted
Maj. Shepard contended his wife had
'comrnifoed saicidey and challenged the
admission Of evidence quoting her as
charging him with poisoning her.
He also attacked the action of the
trial court on other grounds.
During the trial Clara Brown, nurse
who attended Mrs. Shepard. was per-
mitted to testify that Mrs. Shepard had
stated "she was being poisoned and
that DIR. Shepard has poisoned me-"
Maj. Shepard contended the alleged
conversation occurred Is days before
her death and that the judge should
have warned the jury the statements
were not dying declarations.
He also insisted his wife was suffer-
ing many hallucinations, that she did
not recognize people and that the Jury
had attached undue importance to the
statements quoted as having been made
by her.
The decision was handed down by
Justice Cardozo, who reported no dis
sent. 1t took issue with the trial court
and the Circuit Court of Appeals in ad-
mitting the questionable evidence
which related to statements alleged to
have been made by Mrs. Shepard.
Maj. Shepard also declared the trial
judge had wrongly disqualified seven
summoned for jury service because they
admitted having read an article pub
lished in the Kansas City Star a few
days before the trial He insisted the
trial judge should have quashed the
panel. He also declared he had been
deprived Of constitutional rights by the
instructions given the jury and de-
clared the judge had stated It was
murder" in his opening charge to the
jury. removing from the jurors minds
the defense Of suicide
The Tenth Circuit Court OF Appeals
sustained the action of the trial court
against all complaints raised by Mai.
Shepard and found some of the grounds
Of complaint could not be raised be-
cause OF the failure of his counsel to
ask certain instructions.
Offered in Rebuttal.
There is circumstantial evidence to
sustain a finding by the jury that to
win himself freedom he turned to poi
son and murder" said the opinion of
Justice Cardozo. even so, guilt was
contested and conflicting inferences are
possible. The defendant asks us to
hold that by the acceptance of incom-
petent evidence the scales were weighted
to his prejudice and in the end to his
undoing
''The evidence complained of was Of
fered by the Government in rebuttal
when the trial was nearly over. On
May, 1929. there was conversation, in
the absence of the defendant, between
Mrs. Shepard, then i'll in bed and Clara
Brown, her nurse The patient asked
the nurse to go to the closet in the
defendants room and bring a bottle of
whisky that would be found upon a
shelf.
when the bottle was produced she
said this was the liquor she had taken
just before collapsing. She asked
whether enough was left to make test
for the presence of poison, insisting the
smell and taste were strange. Then she
added the words. DR.. Shepard has poi
soned me-
1.-The conversation was proved twice
After the first proof of it the Govern
Continued on Page 2, Column 81