Opinion ID: 1993014
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Was the evidence sufficient to support the verdict?

Text: 11 Del.C., § 571 provides that whoever commits the crime of murder with express malice aforethought shall be guilty of murder in the first degree. Express malice aforethought requires the existence of a formed design to kill or do great bodily harm determined upon with a sedate, deliberate mind. Bantum v. State, 7 Terry 497, 85 A.2d 741. Brown concedes that the charge to the jury in his case properly instructed it as to murder in the first degree. Brown was convicted of the murder of Myrtle Cannon, a woman with whom he had lived for a period of time in the near past, but from whom he was separated at the time of the killing. There is no direct evidence as to the facts leading up to the actual shooting except for Brown's signed statement taken by the police, and except for his testimony from the stand largely to the same effect. Both his statement and testimony were intended by him to be exculpatory, explaining the killing as accidental. The State contends, however, that evidence produced by it as to antecedent threats and mistreatment of the victim by Brown, coupled with the circumstantial evidence of the crime, itself, and the nature of the murder weapon, justify the conclusion that Brown murdered Myrtle Cannon as a result of a formed design to kill, arrived at with a sedate, deliberate mind. Brown's version of the occurrence in both his written statement and testimony is that early in the day of August 31 he came to Wilmington from Northeast, Maryland, where he was then living with his mother, and took a bus to Chester, Pennsylvania. In the lavatory of a tavern in that city, he met a man, unknown to him, from whom he purchased the gun, the murder weapon, with the intention of reselling it at a profit. He then returned to Wilmington, had some dinner, a few drinks after dinner, and later in the evening, while driving a borrowed car on an errand for the owner, casually met Myrtle Cannon who was riding in a car with an unknown man. At her invitation, he followed the car in which she was riding to a house on Rose Lane near New Castle, where she was living with another man. He got out of his car and walked with Myrtle to the door of the house. At her request, he kissed her. During the kiss she pressed against him and felt the gun he had placed in his belt on the left side. Myrtle then asked to see the gun but he refused to let her because it was loaded. Myrtle, who at the time was drunk, grabbed the gun with her right hand and pulled it from his belt. He grabbed at the gun with both his hands and they struggled for it. In the course of the struggle, five shots were discharged. Brown then left Myrtle slumped on her doorstep and returned to Wilmington in the car which had been loaned to him. At a tavern in Wilmington he met a friend of his who had a car. He asked him to drive him to Delaware Hospital where he inquired about Myrtle with no success. He was then driven past Myrtle's house but did not stop because of a crowd of people in front. He was then driven, at his request, to Northeast, Maryland, directing his friend to stop some distance from his mother's home. He walked there but did not go in because of the presence of Maryland State Police. He then went to Rising Sun, Maryland, and was taken into custody by a Maryland State Trooper four days later. The foregoing is Brown's version of the circumstances. It is taken from his written statement and his testimony from the stand. By his version, it would appear that the killing of Myrtle Cannon was accidental. The State in support of the murder charge called several witnesses. It called Leothas Chapman, the fifteen-year-old son of Myrtle Cannon who lived with her and a George Green in the house on the steps of which she was killed. He testified that on the night of August 31, about 11:15 p. m., he was at home watching television and had gone back to the kitchen for a sandwich, and was re-entering the front room when he heard high heels coming up the sidewalk and then a banging on the front door which was locked, and his mother calling his name three or four times. He started for the door and heard a shot and a scream from his mother, followed by several more shots in rapid succession. The front door had a glass window in it and through it the son saw Brown running toward a car. The son opened the door and found his mother lying on the front steps. A witness, Mary Ashley, testified that some time about 11:15 p. m. on the night in question she was walking along Church Street in Wilmington, and that Brown in a car drew up along the sidewalk where she was. She stated that he said, I did it. I killed Myrtle. I had to. A witness, William Thompson, Brown's friend who finally drove him to Northeast, testified that in the course of several hours Brown told him that his wife had been shot five times and that he didn't know who did it. The State further called witnesses who testified as to various occasions on which the prisoner had abused, struck and choked Myrtle Cannon, and, also, as to her complaint that Brown bothered her and should be made to leave her alone. We think if the foregoing had been all of the evidence offered by the State, the issue of first degree murder should probably not have been submitted to the jury. However, other evidence, largely circumstantial, not only destroys Brown's contention of accidental death completely but, we think, is inconsistent with any verdict but that of first degree murder. Brown testified that Myrtle Cannon pulled the gun from his belt with her right hand, that he grabbed it with his two hands, and in the following struggle the gun discharged. From the autopsy it appears that Myrtle Cannon received four bullet wounds, two in her left arm below the elbow, and two in her right arm below the elbow. At least three of these bullets then continued on into her body resulting in her death. The fifth shot from the gun ricocheted along a brick wall and spent itself in the ground. We think the location of the wounds, themselves, throw considerable doubt on Brown's story, for it is difficult to reconcile them with his statement that she was holding the gun in her right hand, presumably by the butt, and yet was shot twice in both forearms. Even more damaging to Brown's story is the nature of the murder weapon, itself. The State called as a witness Edward Baker who had employed Brown for about ten days in the early part of August. This witness was in charge of fence construction on the North East Expressway and, since the area was infested with snakes, he carried a gun in the glove compartment of his car. He testified that Brown had seen the gun and that it had been stolen from his car on August 19. He identified positively the murder weapon as the gun which had been stolen from his car. The gun in question is a single-action.22 calibre Ruger revolver. This type of revolver may be fired only when the hammer is at full cock and the trigger is depressed. There is no other way in which it can be discharged. It may be fired rapidly only by holding the trigger back and striking the hammer with the heel of the other hand so as to put the hammer in the fullcock position and immediately release it. The very nature of the weapon, itself, makes Brown's contention of an accidental shooting incapable of belief. In the first place, it would be almost impossible to discharge a weapon of this type in a struggle for possession of it. In the second place, even though one accidental discharge might in some inconceivable fashion take place, it strains credulity to assume more than one accidental discharge. In the third place, Brown on the stand stated that after the first shot he saw the fire continue to come from the gun which he described as still pointed towards her. This could have been observed by him only if some amount of space separated the two of them which, we think, precludes the idea of a struggle. Thus it is, we think, that it was impossible for the gun to have been discharged accidentally in the course of a struggle. The only rational explanation of the killing is that Brown, himself, fired the shots as rapidly as he could, and since the sequence is described by all witnesses who heard them as rapid, it follows that he emptied the gun mostly into the body of Myrtle Cannon by fanning the hammer. His testimony that he saw the fire coming out of the weapon can have only one meaning  that at least some distance separated him from Myrtle Cannon; that he held the gun, and that he fired the gun deliberately. We think, therefore, that the jury could properly have concluded that Brown deliberately shot Myrtle Cannon with the intent to kill her, or to do her great bodily harm. The use of the deadly weapon, without any showing of provocation, satisfied the requirement that malice be present, and the formed design or the intent to kill is established by the deliberate use of a deadly weapon upon another. The element of premeditation could have been inferred by the jury from the facts of his antecedent mistreatment of Myrtle Cannon; the carrying of the gun upon his person from Northeast, for the jury necessarily must have rejected his story that he purchased it in Chester on that day; the emptying of the gun into her body, and his subsequent flight. As we pointed out in Bantum v. State, supra, deliberation or cold blood coupled with an intent to kill stamps the crime as first degree murder. We are of the opinion that there was sufficient evidence to sustain a conviction of first degree murder.