Opinion ID: 2287998
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Saturday, September 19.

Text: Sometime after midnight, Saturday morning, the Defendant and Catherine went to the cellar to repair her pocketbook. They heard footsteps on the floor above the cellar but when they went up to investigate they saw no one and found the house secured. They returned to the basement and when they finished the repairs, the Defendant woke up the children, changed them and gave them some ice cream. He then took each child into the bathroom separately and washed them. Catherine saw nothing unusual about Tiffany before she went into the bathroom. While Defendant and Tiffany were in the bathroom, Tiffany was whining and Catherine heard a spanking noise. The crying noise continued. She heard the Defendant say I hope you drop dead. When the Defendant brought Tiffany out of the bathroom she was whining and her ears were red. After being put to bed, Tiffany vomited and Catherine changed her bed. The Defendant then went to bed and Catherine went to bed 5 minutes later. About 3:30 A.M. a Mr. Howard who occupied the apartment directly above them was awakened by a loud bang and a man's voice yelling `shut up'. The voice came from the apartment occupied by the Defendant and Miss Stevens and was a voice that the witness had heard coming from that apartment several times before. When Miss Stevens awoke around 8 or 9 A.M. both children were asleep. Shortly after that she heard the other twin moving about and, on going into their bedroom, she found that Tiffany was in a comatose condition. Miss Stevens, who was very distraught, noticed then only that her ears had been injured and were so discolored that the surface appeared at first to be bloody. The jury could have found that this condition of her ears was so remarkable that it would have been noticed had it existed the evening before. The child was rushed to the hospital but she expired at 10:55 A.M. The child's injuries, as revealed by the testimony of the attending physician and the pathologist who performed an autopsy, were unusual. The outstanding feature was the appearance of her ears. The upper two thirds of each ear was bruised and excoriated with bleeding under the skin and the upper surface of the skin torn away in some areas with blood on the surface. The ears were almost reddish purple in color. These injuries could not have been suffered through natural causes or accident and resulted from the external application of a blunt shearing force against the skin. The pathologist described it was an extraordinary combination of injuries, involving essentially the same portion of each ear. There were also unusual injuries to the child's fingers and toes, with hemorrhage under eight toe nails and eight finger nails. The pathologist agreed it appeared as it would if one had hit his hand or thumb with a hammer. A toe nail on each foot had been separated half way from the nail bed and underneath the nail the area was deep red. These could not have been caused accidentally. A similar avulsion was present on one finger. [3] There were recent (within 48 hours) broad scratch marks in the left armpit and on the left cheek [4] and a 2½ inch scratch on one foot and several small scratches on the sole of the other foot. There were contusions on her scalp. The abdomen was very bloated and there was a bruise 1 in diameter on the abdomen. When the distended abdomen was opened it was discovered that there was a fairly large rupture of the jejunum. The rupture had resulted from the application of blunt external force. The rupture of the jejunum had permitted the contents of the intestine to enter the peritoneal cavity, seeding it with bacteria, causing peritonitis and ultimate death. The substance of the medical testimony was that the force which had ruptured the jejunum had been suffered during a period of between 36 and 6 hours of death and that the scratches in the armpit and on the cheek probably occurred within 24 hours of death. There was evidence that the injuries to the ears could have been inflicted between 48 and 12 hours of death. The jury also saw and could evaluate slides showing injuries to the child's head and body. The evaluation of the creditability of the witnesses was within the province of the jury. State v. Trask, Me., 223 A.2d 823 (1966). The jury had heard evidence from which they could conclude that Tiffany showed no visible injuries to her ears, fingers, [5] toes or face when her mother put her to bed at around 7:30 Friday evening or when Catherine saw the Defendant take the child into the bathroom sometime after midnight (except that Catherine had seen a scratch on her face at one time but couldn't remember which day). The jury could conclude that the Defendant had struck the child in the bath-room and had said I hope you drop dead and that Tiffany cried. When they came out, Tiffany's ears were red, a condition which had not been present before and which the jury could conclude had resulted from mistreatment by the Defendant. A few moments later she vomited. From then until about 9 A.M. Catherine and Miss Stevens were asleep. About 3:30 A. M. the occupant of the apartment above heard a loud bang from Miss Stevens' apartment and a man's voice yelling `shut up'. It was a voice the witness had heard coming from that apartment several times before. The jury would have been justified in inferring that it was the Defendant's voice and that it accompanied further violence upon the child. The jury could properly have concluded that the Defendant had injured the child's ears during the incident in the bathroom and that the same motivation which had impelled him to do her those brutal injuries had resulted in his striking her in the abdomen  either then or later when the other disturbance awakened Mr. Howard  rupturing her jejunum and causing her death somewhat more than six hours later. The jury could well have found that this chain of circumstances, each proved beyond a reasonable doubt, led inexorably to the conclusion that the little girl's death was a felonious homicide and that the Defendant was the guilty party. Other hypotheses could be advanced to explain Tiffany's death  such as that she was assaulted by an unknown intruder who had gained entrance to the apartment while the Defendant and Catherine were in the cellar or by one of the two people other than the Defendant who spent Friday night in the apartment or by one or another of the earlier visitors or that she had fallen from her crib  but the jury evidently found each of these hypotheses to have been unreasonable and unsatisfactory attempts to explain her injuries. We cannot say that the jury was not justified in rejecting them and in accepting the hypotheses that led them to convict Defendant of manslaughter. The Defendant abandoned his motion for judgment of acquittal by offering testimony in defense. State v. Rowe, Me., 238 A.2d 217, 220 (1968). His motions for judgment of acquittal at the conclusion of all the evidence and after conviction and for a new trial raise identical questions  the sufficiency of the evidence to warrant belief of the Defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. State v. O'Clair, Me., 292 A.2d 186, 196 (1972). The evidence was sufficient to justify conviction and there was no error in the Justice's denial of the Defendant's motions. [6] The entry must be: Appeal denied.