Tyler v. United States

PROCTOR, Circuit Judge.

This appeal is from a judgment of conviction and mandatory death sentence 1 for murder in the first degree 2 as charged in two counts of an indictment, each alleging the murder of a man, in perpetrating the offense of housebreaking while armed with a dangerous weapon. (See third and fourth counts of indictment, J. A. 1.)

During the night of April 6, 1950, Oliver R. Hess and John C. Carpenter, watchmen in Lansburgh’s Department Store, were murdered. Each had been stabbed several times in the chest and back. Indications pointed to their slayer’s having entered the store…