State v. Butler

The opinion of the court was delivered by

Jacobs, J.

The defendant William Butler was convicted of murder in the first degree and was sentenced to death. He appeals to this court as of right under R. R. 1:2-1 (c).

In July 1956 the Hoppers Coke Company’s office building in Port Reading, Middlesex County, was broken into, its safe was removed and opened, its office drawers and lockers were rilled, and its relief engineer, James Quackenbush, was brutally beaten to death. In January 1957, separate indictments were returned, charging that William Butler, Eugene Williams and his brother Bland…