Wheeler v. United States

WILBUR K. MILLER, Associate Justice.

Jointly indicted under Title 22, § 2401, D.C.Code (1940), Reginald J. Wheeler and Jesse James Patton were found guilty when tried together in the District Court of the United States for the District of Columbia. They appeal from the judgment sentencing them to death.

The facts reveal a wanton, cold-blooded murder. Two Negro men, bent on robbery, went into a drug store at the corner of 18th Street and Florida Avenue in the District of Columbia shortly before 11:00 o’clock on the morning of June 5, 1946. One stopped in the front of the store near the soda…