State v. Gilligan
Supreme Court of Connecticut
Indictment for murder in the first degree, brought to the Superior Court in Hartford County and tried to the jury before Greene, Jverdict and judgment of guilty as charged, and appeal by the accused. The accused in one indictment was charged in separate counts with five separate murders in the first degree by means of poison.
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Indictment for murder in the first degree, brought to the Superior Court in Hartford County and tried to the jury before Greene, Jverdict and judgment of guilty as charged, and appeal by the accused. The accused in one indictment was charged in separate counts with five separate murders in the first degree by means of poison. She kept a home for aged and infirm persons at Windsor, and, as the result of a succession of deaths among the inmates under circumstances exciting suspicion, the bodies of some of the deceased were exhumed, and the accused indicted of four murders by arsenic and one by…
1Opinion of the CourtBeach, J.
The most important assignments of error, both in the admission of evidence and in charging the jury as -do its effect, relate to the admission, in the State’s case in chief, of evidence to prove that the accused committed three other murders by arsenic poisoning, two before and one after the date of the crime for which she was on trial.
The argument against admitting evidence of other similar but unconnected crimes is not that it has no probative value. As Wigmore said: “It is objectionable, not because it has no appreciable probative value, but because it has too much” (§194); meaning, of…
2Cases cited4 opinions
- People v. . MolineuxNew York Court of Appeals · 1901
- State v. HydeSupreme Court of Missouri · 1911
- State v. WardSupreme Court of Connecticut · 1881
- State v. RaymondSupreme Court of Connecticut · 1855
3Cited by52 opinions
- People v. SchaderCalifornia Supreme Court · 1969
- State v. EspositoSupreme Court of Connecticut · 1984
- State v. BrownSupreme Court of Connecticut · 1975
- State v. NardiniSupreme Court of Connecticut · 1982
- State v. BramanSupreme Court of Connecticut · 1983
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