In July 1933, Edward Parlton and Alfred Smith (also known as H. Albert Smith) were students at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and living in the Sigma Chi fraternity house. A fire broke out at the fraternity house at approximately 4:20 a.m. on July 9, 1933, while 15 fraternity members were asleep. City firefighters put out the fire before it caused serious injury or extensive damage.
Investigators with the police and fire departments determined that the fire had started in the first-floor living room and hallway, as well as a second-floor bedroom, where 22-year-old Parlton, a pledge, and 26-year-old Smith, the fraternity treasurer, lived. The investigators also said that gasoline had been used to start the fire.
Police arrested Parlton and Smith on July 19, 1933, and charged them with arson. That same day, police removed a portion of the felt pad that was under the floor mat in the back of Smith's car. This portion of pad was photographed and had a blue stain.
The case against Parlton and Smith went to trial in October 1933 in the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, with Justice Peyton Gordon presiding. Assistant District Attorney John J. Sirica prosecuted the case. (Sirica would later rise to fame for his role, as a federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, in presiding over the Watergate trial). Attorneys Percy H. Marshall and Frederick Rice represented Parlton and Smith, who were tried jointly.
The prosecution argued that Smith's motive was to destroy evidence of fraternity treasury discrepancies, and presented evidence that the financial records were damaged in the fire. The alleged motive for Parltonwas retaliation because he had not been approved for full membership by some other fraternity members. The evidence of any such motive was vague and not well-substantiated at the trial.
The prosecution's case relied on circumstantial evidence. Its witnesses included two gas-station attendants. Charles Kersey identified Parlton as the man who had purchased a large can of blue gasoline from him in Alexandria, Virginia, in the hours before the fire started. At the time, gasoline was often dyed different colors to distinguish between grades, and the gasoline which Kersey said he sold to Parlton contained blue dye. Kersey also identified a can that was found in the Sigma Chi garage as the same can that Parlton had purchased and placed behind the seats in the back of the car. This was the same location where police had reportedly found the blue stain beneath the car mat.
A second attendant identified the gas can as the one purchased on July 9, and Smith's car as the car driven, but this attendant was not able to identify Parlton or Smith as the purchaser.
Fire Marshall Calvin G. Lauber testified that gasoline cans had been found on two floors of the Sigma Chi house at the time of the fire, as well as in the garage.
According to testimony from police, the portion of the car pad with the blue stain had disappeared from the evidence room and could not be located. Nonetheless, the prosecution had admitted into evidence photos of the stain. A witness described as a microanalyst testified that, upon performing a chemical test on the pad, he found the blue coloring to be consistent with the blue coloring in the can that had been identified by the gas station attendants. This evidence was admitted over the defendants' objection.
Parlton and Smith presented an alibi defense that they had been north of Baltimore, Maryland, at the time the fire broke out.
Parlton and Smith each took the stand and detailed their whereabouts on the morning in question and night before. Each testified that the two of them left the fraternity house in Smith's car at about 8:00 p.m. on July 8 and did not return to the house until about 9:00 p.m. on July 9. They drove first to pick up a young woman nearby, and then the three of them drove to pick up another young woman in Rockville, Maryland. After driving around for some time, they drove the woman from Rockville back to her house and then returned the first woman to her home in Washington. Then the two men went to an all-night restaurant, also in Washington, and finished eating at about 3 a.m. on July 9. They testified that they then decided to drive to New Freedom, Pennsylvania, where they would get a hotel and rest before visiting a woman they knew in New Freedom later in the day.
The men testified that they headed north out of Washington to Baltimore, where they bought a 10-gallon container of gasoline. As they drove to New Freedom, about an hour north of Baltimore, the car began having engine trouble. They slowed down and were able to make it to Gunpowder Falls bridge in rural Maryland before the car became undrivable. The men said they parked the car at the bridge and began walking, hoping to find a telephone so they could call a mechanic. They said they found a small inn nearby and knocked on the front door. One of the owners, Mrs. Schultz, opened a window and said the inn did not have a telephone but directed them to a garage in the town of Hereford, about two miles away. Smith walked toward the garage while Parlton headed back to the car.
Smith testified that he reached the garage in Hereford just as it was being opened by its owner, Mr. Winemiller. After Smith explained the situation to Winemiller, Winemiller borrowed his neighbor's car and they drove to the bridge. Winemiller repaired the car and Parlton and Smith continued to New Freedom. Six alibi witnesses testified in support of the defendants' version of events. These included Mrs. Schultz, who testified that she spoke to the two defendants at about daybreak. Records showed sunrise was sometime between 4:15 a.m. and 4:45 a.m. Winemiller and his wife testified that he rose about 5:20 and got to work about 5:35 each morning.
The distance between the restaurant in Washington where Parlton and Miller ate and the Gunpowder Falls bridge was 68 miles. The defense said that Parlton and Miller could not have been at the fraternity house to set the fire because they had established their presence nearly 70 miles away at times close to the outbreak of the fire.
With regard to the prosecution's theory that Smith was motivated to set the fire to hide missing funds, the defense presented evidence that the missing amount ($75) had been lent to other fraternity members in small amounts, as was the usual custom.
The jury found Parlton and Smith guilty on October 26, 1933. On November 10, 1933, Justice Gordon sentenced each man to two to nine years in prison.
Both men appealed.
Acting through U.S. Attorney General Homer Cummings, the government submitted a confession of error. The attorney general also submitted to the court a written statement. This statement explained that the attorney general had conducted an independent investigation of this case after the convictions, which included investigators driving at top speed from the Hereford location (where the men's presence on the morning in question was confirmed by various alibi witnesses) to the fraternity house. The attorney general then determined that it would have been impossible for the men to have been at the house to start the fire at 4:20 a.m. This, taken with the rest of the results of his investigation, satisfied him that Parlton and Smith were innocent of the crime for which they had been convicted.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit avoided directly addressing whether these findings provided a basis for reversal, because the appellate court found that a different "fatal error" had been committed by the trial court. This error was the admission of evidence regarding the stain in the car without also presenting evidence showing that the condition of the stain-observed at the time of arrest- was the same as at the time of the crime. The appellate court noted that many other people had used Smith's car between the crime and the taking of the evidence sample. The appellate court held that the trial judge had erred in admitting this evidence. The appellate court reversed and remanded the case on February 4, 1935.
On February 7, 1935, U.S. Attorney Leslie C. Garnett dismissed the charges against Parlton and Smith.
- Meghan Barrett Cousino
Posting Date: 06-17-2024