Martyn v. Donlin

The plaintiff is the administratrix of the estate of her son, John Martyn. He was shot and killed by the defendant Donlin, a police officer in the city of Hartford, while he, Martyn, was attempting to elude the policeman as the latter sought to apprehend and arrest him. Donlin had observed Martyn, a youth of seventeen, driving an automobile, shortly after midnight on April 20, 1958, at an excessive speed on Main Street in Hartford. He passed other vehicles going in the same direction on their right, drove erratically and ran through red traffic control signals. Donlin, in a police cruiser,…