Guthrie v. United States

WILBUR K. MILLER, Circuit Judge.

On Friday, November 30, 1951, in Harry Guthrie’s room on the third floor of a rooming house in the District of Columbia, Ruth Leong was brutally assaulted and a soft drink bottle 1 was introduced into her body. About midnight she was taken by the police to a hospital, where the bottle was removed, but she died December 12, 1951, from general peritonitis resulting from a perforated intestine.

Guthrie was indicted for second degree murder, found guilty by a jury, and sentenced to imprisonment for twenty years, with a recommendation by the trial judge that he be…