People v. Crimm

THE COURT. — The appellant Grimm and three other inmates of Folsom Prison were jointly charged with the murder of one Fred E. Smith, also an inmate, in an information filed by the District Attorney of Sacramento County. Each defendant entered a plea of not guilty. Early in the trial Grimm’s motion to change his plea to one of guilty to a charge of manslaughter was denied. At the conclusion of a protracted trial the jury returned separate verdicts finding Grimm guilty of murder of the first degree, without recommendation, and finding each of the three codefendants not guilty. Grimm prosecutes this appeal from the judgment imposing the death penalty and from the order denying a new trial.

The deceased, an elderly inmate, was found dead on December 28, 1940, in his cabin on “flower garden hill,” a portion of the prison premises where he was engaged in gardening. His head and body had many lacerations and knife wounds, which the prison doctor testified had caused death. Early in the trial Grimm took the stand as a prosecution witness and related a story that implicated him and the codefendant Ferrow as “look-outs” and codefendants Freeman and Walker as the actual perpetrators of the homicide. He declared that the four of them met pursuant to previous agreement and proceeded toward the deceased’s cabin for the purpose of permitting two of the group to settle certain grievances with deceased. Grimm and Ferrow assertedly remained near the cabin while the other two approached and entered the cabin. Grimm testified that he heard scuffling in the cabin. He approached the cabin, peered into it, and saw the deceased on the floor covered with blood. His assailants stood near him and a “bloody axe” lay on the floor. The four left the scene, and Grimm testified, they exchanged trousers shortly thereafter to facilitate the disposition of those that were blood-spattered. In narrating this version of the homicide, Grimm admitted that he had engaged in an earlier conversation with Ferrow as to how deceased could be “gotten rid of” and that he had “an idea” why they went to the deceased’s cabin on the day of the homicide. Each of the three codefendants took the witness stand in his own defense and denied participating in the murder. In addition, defendant Walker repudiated an earlier confession to the warden on the ground that it was made [317]solely to ascertain the effect of Grimm’s story to the warden implicating the four defendants.

It would serve no useful purpose to narrate a number of circumstances tending to support the appellant’s first version of the homicide. The jury by its several verdicts convicting the appellant alone and acquitting the codefendants apparently rejected that version and accepted as true appellant’s second version, given at a later point in the trial, wherein he declared that he alone, unassisted by others, had murdered the deceased. On the last day of the trial, Grimm, recalled as a witness for the defendant Freeman, took the stand and freely admitted that he alone had perpetrated the murder as the result of a dispute with the deceased over a narcotic deal. He repudiated his first version of the homicide and exonerated his three codefendants of any knowledge of or participation in the killing.