252 Mass. 465 | Mass. | 1925
The defendant in the first case was charged in the first count of the indictment, under G. L. c. 265, § 25, with verbally threatening one Kenneth Merrill to accuse him of the crime of adultery with intent thereby to extort money from said Merrill. The Commonwealth relied on the first count only. On the second and third counts, the court directed verdicts for the defendant; he was found guilty on the first count.
In the second case, the defendant Corcoran was charged with the same offence as in the first, and the defendants Theresa Duggan, Lillian H. Reese, Thomas Moran, Theodore Bearse and J. Warren Kane were charged jointly as accessories before the fact to the threatening by Corcoran of Kenneth Merrill to accuse him of the crime of adultery with intent to extort money. The Commonwealth relied only on the count in the indictment which charged these defendants with the crime of being accessories before the fact to the crime alleged to have been committed by the defendant Corcoran. The defendant Reese pleaded guilty after the empanelling of the jury; Moran was not present at the trial; Bearse was found not guilty; and the defendants Duggan and Kane were convicted.
The case is before this court on exceptions of the defendants Corcoran, Duggan and Kane. Each filed a motion for a bill of particulars, and specifications were given by the Commonwealth.
The Commonwealth offered evidence tending to show that the offence was committed in November, 1919 (the exact date did not appear), in an apartment at 88 Hancock Street in Cambridge. There was evidence that the apartment was rented by the defendant Kane from Ada Wall in the preceding September; that by previous arrangement between Corcoran and one Harry E. Levenson and the other defendants above named, Merrill was induced to visit the apartment and there enter a bedroom with the defendants Duggan and Reese; that at a certain time by a previously arranged signal, the other defendants charged as accessories entered, and claimed to have detected Merrill in the commission of a crime; that the defendant Corcoran was sent
The Commonwealth offered evidence to show that for a considerable period of time before the alleged crime was committed the defendants and others, including Levenson, had entered into a general conspiracy to entrap' men in compromising situations with women, and when found under such conditions to extort from them money under threat of arrest. Evidence to show such conspiracy and plots was admitted, subject to the exception of the defendants. It is well established that evidence which merely tends to prove that defendants have committed similar offences is not admissible. But evidence tending to show that the defendants had entered into a general scheme to extort and defraud substantially by the same means, as appears in the present case, is admissible to show the intent and purpose with which they acted and that the acts charged were part of a common scheme. Commonwealth v. Choate, 105 Mass. 451. Commonwealth v. Scott, 123 Mass. 222. Commonwealth v. Blood, 141 Mass. 571. Commonwealth v. Dow, 217 Mass. 473, 480. Commonwealth v. Farmer, 218 Mass. 507. Commonwealth v. Riches, 219 Mass. 433, 439.
The defendant Corcoran and the witness Levenson were attorneys at law, practising in Boston at the time the alleged offence was committed. Levenson testified that he knew the defendant Corcoran, and became acquainted with the defendant Kane in 1916; that he became acquainted
This witness further testified, in substance, that he was told by Corcoran to be at the Copley Square Hotel, as he had arranged with Mrs. Reese and Mrs. Duggan to telephone him (Levenson) just after the raid, and that he would be somewhere in town; that he received a telephone call that night about nine o’clock, at the Copley Square Hotel, from the defendant Moran, as a result of which he went to the apartment at 88 Hancock Street; that when he arrived he found Merrill and Corcoran in conference; that Moran, Bearse and Kane were there, and Mrs. Duggan and Mrs. Reese were in the apartment partially dressed; that the following conversation took place: Moran said to him, “We got the goods on Mr. Merrill and Mrs. Duggan, and following your instructions I was going to take them to the station house; but Corcoran here asked me to wait until he could talk the matter over with you, so I telephoned you. . . . Corcoran broke in and said, ‘Well, can’t we take this matter up?’ I turned to Merrill and said, ‘Well, they have got the goods on you, haven’t they?’ And he said, ‘Yes, they have caught me with the goods,’ . . . ‘But can’t this be fixed up somehow?’ . . . Corcoran first said to me,‘Who do you represent? ’ And I said I represented Mrs. Duggan’s husband. And he said, ‘Well, what do you want to do about it?’ I said, ‘Well, there is only one thing to do, — have them taken to the station house, and if they are con
There was further evidence that Corcoran agreed to act as .attorney for Merrill and that the latter went to Corcoran’s office the next day; that on that day Corcoran told Levenson that he felt Merrill was telling the truth when he said he had no property and that he was going to turn him over to his (Corcoran’s) brother Leo to "let Leo get a fee out of him any way.” Levenson also testified that Mrs. Duggan and Mrs. Reese later came to his office and inquired about the Merrill case and said they needed money, and that he took them to Corcoran’s office and the latter gave Mrs. Reese some money.
The foregoing and other evidence offered by the Commonwealth, if believed by the jury, warranted a finding that the defendant Corcoran entered into a scheme or plot to extort money from Merrill by threatening to accuse him of the crime of adultery, as charged in the indictment. If, as the jury could have found, Corcoran said, "Well, Mr. Merrill, you will either have to settle or you are apt to go to jail,” a finding would have been justified that it was a threat to accuse Merrill of the crime with intent to extort money from him. This court has said that "Such threats might often be expressed in very general or vague terms without indi
The contract between Corcoran and the Dim company was admissible in evidence. The subscriber’s tickets or requests for information concerning the financial standing of different persons, applied for by Corcoran, so far as admitted, were also competent. The information so requested could have been found not to have been sought for a legitimate purpose, but to obtain information to enable the defendant to extort money by threats to accuse other persons of crime. The court carefully excluded all tickets or calls for information made by the defendant which were not shown to be relevant to the issue whether a conspiracy or plot had been entered into by the defendants to extort money from Merrill by means of threatening to accuse him of a crime. If such a plan or scheme was found to have been formed by the defendants, all the statements and acts of each in the furtherance of the common purpose were competent as against the other. Commonwealth v. Blood, supra. Commonwealth v. Scott, supra. Commonwealth v. Smith, 163 Mass. 411. Commonwealth v. Kelly, 186 Mass. 403. Commonwealth v. Clancy, 187 Mass. 191. Commonwealth v. Stuart, 207 Mass. 563.
The defendants in various requests for instructions asked the court to rule in substance that no threat to extort money could be found to have been made unless Merrill “actually, consciously understood that the defendant verbally and maliciously threatened said Merrill to accu'se him of the crime . . . and that “There can be no threat to extort money unless the threat is conveyed to the mind of the person alleged to be threatened.” These requests were refused and the defendants excepted. Upon this question the court
Although it was said in Commonwealth v. Coolidge, 128 Mass. 55, at page 58, that “It is not necessary to the consummation of the offence that the money be absolutely extorted, or that the party threatened should be in any manner defrauded or injured,” the precise question here presented has not been considered or determined by this court.
The gist of the offence described in the statute is the attempt to extort money. Commonwealth v. Goodwin, 122 Mass. 19, 33. If the threat be of the kind referred to in the statute, and is made with the intent thereby to extort money, or with the intent to accomplish any of the other objects mentioned therein, the crime has been committed. The language is explicit and is not subject to any exceptions or qualifications. The Legislature did not make the commission of the offence dependent upon the state of mind of the person threatened, and there is no occasion for reading into the statute qualifications not there found. If it had been intended that to constitute the offence the person threatened was intimidated or must have understood and appreciated the fact that he was so threatened with the intent to extort money from him, or to accomplish any other purpose set forth in the statute, it is a rational inference that it would have
The instructions given upon this branch of the case, although following State v. Stockford, 77 Conn. 227, and State v. McGee, 80 Conn. 614, were more favorable to the defendants than a correct construction of the statute warranted. Accordingly the exceptions to the denial of requests numbered ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, thirty-six, thirty-seven and thirty-eight must be overruled.
' As the evidence, if believed, justified a finding that the defendant Corcoran threatened to accuse Merrill of the crime of adultery with intent to extort money, and that the defendants Duggan and Kane aided and assisted acts of Corcoran, none of them were entitled to a directed verdict. It follows that the first, second, third and fourth exceptions cannot be sustained..
The defendants’ sixth, seventh, eighth, fourteenth and fifteenth requests are to the effect that if Levenson was not present at the apartment when the alleged crime was committed, then any evidence from him of a threat made by Corcoran must be disregarded and a verdict rendered for the defendants. It is plain that these requests could not properly have been given. Corcoran was the only one who testified that Levenson was not present in the apartment on the night in question. It was for the jury whether his testimony of what Corcoran said to Merrill was true; unless he were present he could not have heard it; if he was present it still was a question of fact whether Corcoran threatened Merrill as testified to by Levenson. Upon this the judge instructed the jury: “. . . unless you find that the defendant Corcoran threatened Kenneth Merrill, and made such threat for the purpose of obtaining money from the said Kenneth Merrill, either by compulsion, by force or by the force of motives applied to the will of said Kenneth Merrill, you should return a verdict of ‘Not Guilty.’” The refusal to give these requests was not erroneous.
The ninth request was covered by the charge. The jury were told they were to weigh the evidence carefully as to all the interested parties, giving to the testimony of each the
The requests 16A and 16B could not properly have been given. The trial judge expressly excluded all testimony relating to the Barbour case, so called. The evidence admitted in the cases of Curtis, Donovan, Korn, Bean and others could have been found to relate to the obtaining of money under circumstances somewhat similar to those charged in the case at bar. This evidence was competent to show a general plot or scheme to obtain money by threats to accuse persons of a crime; and also, as bearing upon the credibility of the testimony of the defendant Corcoran so far as he denied having had anything to do with those cases.
The refusal to give in terms the seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth requests presents no reversible error. They refer to the conduct and statements of the defendant Corcoran on the night the alleged crime was committed and on the following day. The court was not required to charge upon particular parts of the evidence. The rights of the defendants were fully protected by the instructions given.
The twenty-third request was in substance covered by the giving of requests twenty-four and twenty-five, as well as by parts of the charge.
If the jury believed the testimony of Merrill, they were not bound to find that he was not threatened with prosecution for any crime. Whether the evidence of statements alleged to have been made to him by Corcoran could have been found to constitute a threat, presented a question of law for the court. It follows that the thirty-third request could not properly have been given.
The fortieth request was rightly denied. The bill of particulars filed in the case against the defendant Corcoran, stated that the Commonwealth was unable to specify the exact words used which constituted the threat charged, but in substance they were that one Merrill had committed a crime, and that if he did not pay a sum of money he would be prosecuted. The Commonwealth was not bound to
During the course of the trial a large number of exceptions to the admission and exclusion of evidence was saved by the defendants. Although they have not all been referred to in detail, all have been carefully considered with the result that we are unable to find any error of law in the manner in which they were dealt with by the presiding judge.
The questions excluded on cross-examination show no reversible error. How far the cross-examination of a witness may be relevant to the issue on trial must be left largely to the sound discretion of the court; such questions are not open to revision unless the substantial rights of a party are clearly shown to have been prejudiced, which does not appear in the case at bar. Jennings v. Rooney, 183 Mass. 577, 579. Commonwealth v. Phelps, 210 Mass. 109, 114. Commonwealth v. Gettigan, ante, 450.
The admission of the so called confession of Mrs. Duggan made to the attorney general was not erroneous. It was admitted only as against her, and while the court found in the first instance that it was made voluntarily, he left that question to the jury ultimately to decide, and specifically instructed them to disregard it if they found otherwise. This was in accordance with correct practice.
A motion was filed by the defendant Corcoran that all evidence introduced in rebuttal by the testimony of Harry E. Levenson with reference to the so called Curtis episode be stricken from the record, and that the jury be further instructed to disregard all evidence offered, by the Commonwealth for the purpose of showing any alleged general
On redirect examination of the witness Reese she testified that on the afternoon of the day when the alleged crime was committed the defendant Kane brought to the apartment a quart of liquor. On recross-examination by the defendants’ counsel, she testified that she did not recollect whether she mentioned this incident to the attorney general in her statement to him previously made. She also testified that she did not remember when she told the district attorney that Kane had brought liquor to the apartment. The cross-examination relating to this subject had a tendency to impeach the witness and to show that her testimony of the bringing of the liquor to the apartment was a recent fabrication; and it is admitted by the defendants’ counsel that this was the purpose of the cross-examination. In these circumstances the Commonwealth was allowed to show by one Crafts, who had acted as attorney for the witness, that she had consulted him before testifying before the grand jury in this case; that she told him at that time that Kane brought liquor to 88 Hancock Street on the day of the evening Merrill was there. This evidence was competent to show that her testimony was not a recent invention, and was admitted by the court for that purpose only. Griffin v.
The order in which evidence is admitted rests in the discretion of the trial judge, to the exercise of which discretion no exception lies. Commonwealth v. Piper, 120 Mass. 185, 187; Commonwealth v. Dorr, 216 Mass. 314, 319, and cases cited.
The defendants filed a motion for a new trial which motion, as amended, set forth five grounds, and in-support thereof several affidavits were filed. The motion was denied and the defendants excepted. The first ground stated as the basis for a new trial was that the rights of the defendants were prejudiced by the remarks of an assistant district attorney made in an argument before a jury in another case previously on trial, and within the hearing of the jurors drawn in the present case. The record shows that before the jury was empanelled a conference took place in the presence of the judge, and the defendants’ counsel directed the attention of the court to the remarks so alleged to have been made by the assistant district attorney; after discussion the judge stated he intended to address the jury respecting their duties before the trial began, and outlined in a general way what the nature of those remarks would be; this was apparently satisfactory to counsel for the defendants, and the jury were instructed accordingly. In these circumstances the court was not required to hear either evidence or arguments on this part of the motion.
As to the second and third grounds stated in the motion, the court said he would hear such evidence as either side desired to present relative to the facts set forth in the affidavits. Several witnesses testified to the effect that one
The fourth ground upon which the defendants contend that a new trial should be granted is that in the selection and empanelling of the jurors “a discrimination was made by the government in its challenges of certain jurors which said challenges deprived the defendants of a trial by such a jury as is intended to be drawn and comprehended by the Constitution to wit, a jury of the peers.” There is nothing in the record to show upon what facts the defendants relied to sustain this allegation in the motion. It cannot, therefore, be determined that the defendants did not obtain a fair and impartial trial for the reasons stated, or that the court erred in refusing to grant the motion on this ground.
The fifth ground alleged is that,, as the defendant Reese had agreed with the district attorney to plead guilty before the jury was drawn and was to receive immunity and that she did not so plead until after the jury was empanelled, and that notwithstanding these facts the Commonwealth “exercised the right of peremptory challenges in the case of Lillian Reese . . . knowing full well that said Reese was to
Every question raised on this record has been considered. No error of law is disclosed. The presiding judge, in his desire to guard carefully the rights of the defendants, in several instances excluded evidence favorable to the contention of the Commonwealth which might properly have been admitted. His allusions to the testimony were full and fair to the Commonwealth and to the defendants. In the course of the charge much of the testimony which had an important bearing upon the questions to be determined by the jury was read to them that they might be aided in their deliberations to arrive at a just verdict. Many of the requests for rulings were embodied in the instructions given. Those which were refused for the reasons before stated could not properly have been given. The denial of the motion for a new trial shows no error of law; so far as it presented questions of fact, it was within the discretion of the judge, and nothing appears to show an abuse of such discretion.
As no error of law is disclosed by the record, the entry must be
Exceptions overruled.