Court Opinion

ID: 9681937
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 08:01:48.500871+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:36.688524
License: Public Domain

GALBREATH, Judge
(dissenting).
I must dissent from the majority opinion because there is no proof of the premeditation necessary to raise the murder described in the record from second degree to first.
The fact that a killing takes place raises a presumption in law of second degree murder. There can be no presumption of first degree murder, every element of which must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
“* * * from the mere fact of killing, without more, the law presumes only murder in the second degree.” Witt v. State, 46 Term. 5.
There is not an iota of proof in this record as to the circumstances surrounding the killing. There were no witnesses who survived other than the defendant and he testified he did not recall the killing.
*663From the gruesome manner of the killing there can be little doubt but that it was accomplished in an irrational passionate fury that characterizes a paranoiac frenzy. Of course, this may not be so; the defendant could have cleverly mutilated his victim in an effort to convince the authorities later that he was not acting with that degree of rationality necessary to convict for first degree murder. But we cannot so speculate. We can presume nothing against innocence. See Liming v. State, 220 Tenn. 371, 417 S.W.2d 769. If we are to engage in presumption, it must be towards innocence, not guilt. If we could presume, in the absence of any proof, that the defendant deliberately and coolly attacked his victim with the previously conceived purpose of mutilating her to the horrible extent involved here, we could just as easily presume that the victim herself was the aggressor and that she was killed by the defendant while warding off her attack. The law allows neither of these speculations, although, as aforesaid, it does allow a presumption of murder in the second degree.
True, this was a savage and brutal murder. Second degree murder is more often characterized by brutality than is first degree. A jealous lover may in a fit of rage blow his unfaithful mate’s head from her body with a shotgun and fire the weapon into her lifeless body repeatedly until all the shells are expended. Would this be as serious a crime as the stealthy poisoning of an infant child by its father to collect the proceeds of an insurance policy on its life? The law says not and reserves its highest degree of punishment, not for the drunken monster who rips and mutilates his helpless victim attacked without reason or motive, but for the sly, deliberate killer *664who slays from ambush after careful planning both the crime and his escape from detection.
The defendant in this case could not have been more irrational in his activities immediately after the crime. He practically assured his arrest and conviction by going into the Texaco Service Station for the purchase of gasoline he did not need while reeking with the blood of his victim and incredibly paying for the purchase with his credit card. True, we may look to the surrounding circumstances of a murder to determine whether or not premeditation existed, but is this not the plainest kind of circumstantial evidence that this killer did not have enough coolness of purpose right after the murder to take the simplest precautions against detection? This is the only circumstantial evidence in the case that bears on the question of premeditation and it completely refutes it. The only other significant thing in the record as to his activities prior to his realization the next day that he may have killed the victim is that he ate a hearty breakfast and went to sleep. This is a typical reaction of a paranoid after the release of tension that follows the berserk type of behavior causing the victim’s death. This is in no wise to intimate that the defendant was insane to the point of not knowing the difference between right and wrong but strongly mitigates against the coolness of purpose and design that must be present in all first degree murder cases not involving the commission or attempts to perpetrate the crimes enumerated in T.C.A. § 39-2402.
Was this murder committed in hot blood or cool? Black defines “cool blood” as:
*665“Calmness or tranquility; the undisturbed possession of one’s faculties and reason; the absence of violent passion, fury, or uncontrollable excitement.”
Can there be any presumption that the defendant in this case was acting in such a manner as described in this definition? In my considered opinion, no.
Judge Oliver in his concurring opinion seems to equate brutality, or atrocity, cruelty and malignity with premeditation. As pointed out above, the cruelest murders are those that fall into the category of second degree. Homicides committed in hot blood without premeditation are not infrequently more brutal and ghastly in their physical manifestations than those which have been planned. A corpse that has been mutilated almost beyond recognition with a broad ax is much more horrible to the vision than is the body of a little baby that has been smothered with a pillow, but the ax is frequently the murder weapon of one in a fit of uncontrollable anger, whereas a pillow is usually not.
Further, not one of the seven cases cited by Judge Oliver is helpful in deciding this case because in each of them facts were proved which established premeditation. I summarize and distinguish:
1. In Dowell v. State, the victims were thrown into a creek in an effort to conceal the crime and not discovered for a month. It is suggested that if decomposition had progressed much further, the bodies could not have been identified. Such activity after a crime does suggest deliberation and calculated action. (The defendant made no effort to conceal the victim. On the contrary, he left her living.)
*6662. In People v. Furlong, robbery was proved and thus proof of premeditation was not needed. (There is no proof of robbery or any other of the defined felonies in this case.)
3. State v. McNamara was a gangster killing by one bank robber of his confederate. The motive was obvious from the proof, to steal the deceased’s share of the rather large proceeds of the crime. Robbery, of course, negates proof of premeditation. (No attempt to commit any other felony by the defendant here was proved.)
4. In State v. Page, enmity and ill will, coupled with robbery of the victim, was proved. (No enmity or robbery element in this case.)
5. In Commonwealth v. Bartolini, the defendant had assaulted the deceased twice within about a month before the murder. This permitted an inference that this disposition to attack the deceased continued until the date of the killing. (There was no prior attacks on the victim by the defendant in this case.)
6. In State v. Faust, a civil rights riot was raging and the defendant announced “kill that son of a bitch” prior to joining in the assault by a mob against two officers. The court held that this constituted a previous threat against the deceased by the defendant. (There was no proof of any ill will on the part of the defendant here.)
7. In People v. Butler, the murderer had severely beaten and tortured a child over a prolonged period and had made many previous attacks on her. (There is nothing even suggesting prior attacks in the instant case.)
*667The brutality of a killing cannot by itself support a finding that the killer acted with premeditation. Therefore, if the evidence shows no more than the infliction of multiple acts of violence on the victim, it would not be sufficient to show that the killing was the result of careful thought and weighing of considerations. See People v. Anderson, (Supreme Court of California), 73 Cal.Rptr. 550, 447 P.2d 942.
There is simply no proof at all as to premeditation in this record. None. Not a scintilla. For this reason I would modify the verdict by reduction to second degree murder if acceptable to the State; otherwise, I would reverse and remand for a new trial.