123 Ky. 368 | Ky. Ct. App. | 1906
Lead Opinion
Opinion by
Reversing.
The appellant was tried in the Fayette circuit court and found guilty of the offense of barn burning^ and his punishment fixed at confinement in the penitentiary for a term of six years.
He was the sub-tenant of J. C. Ruark, the tenant of
The conclusion we have reached as to the merits of this appeal renders it improper that we should discuss the evidence further than to say that, in our opinion, it was sufficient to warrant the submission of appellant’s guilt or innocence to the jury.
One of the rulings complained of is that the court permitted the fact that Ruark’s house was burned to be given in evidence on the trial. This we think was error. The issue being tried by the jury was whether or not appellant burned Van Meter’s barn. The fact that, a month before, Ruark’s house had also been burned had no legal connection with the guilt or innocence of the accused of the offense with which he stood charged. The first was entirely collateral to the latter, and the fact that there was evidence that the accused had threatened to “get even” with both Ruark and Van Meter did not so connect the two offenses as to make the production of the evidence
The case in hand affords a good illustration of the evil arising from a violation of the rule we have under discussion. In the indictment against the accused, he is charged with the burning of Yan Meter’s barn. In the trial, evidence is adduced to show that Ruark’s house was burned a month before the burning of Yan Meter’s barn. This evidence was adduced for the purpose, as the court told the jury, of establishing (if in their opinion, it had that effect) the guilt of the defendant of the offense for which he was being tried. By this evidence he was reduced to the dilemma of either saying nothing as to the burning of Ruark’s house, or of attempting to disprove his guilt of that offense. "What opportunity was given him to produce witnesses to show his innocence? Suppose, for instance, at the time Ruark’s house was burned he was in Louisville, Ky., and could have established an alibi if given an opportunity. No such opportunity was, or could be, given him; and, therefore, he was forced to allow this damaging testimony to go to the jury undenied, except by his own testimony. The caution of the judge to the jury that they were only to consider this evidence in so far as it tended to establish the guilt of the defendant of the crime of burning Yan Meter’s barn, in no wise tended to cure the evil of
In Russell on Crimes (9th Ed.) vol. 3, p. 279, it'is said: “No evidence can be admitted which does not tend to prove or disprove the issue joined. In criminal proceedings the necessity is stronger, if possible, than in civil, of strictly enforcing the rule, that the evidence is to be confined to the point in issue: for where a prisioner is charged with an offense, it is of the utmost importance to him that the facts laid before the jury should consist exclusively of the transaction which forms the subject of the indictment, which alone he can be expected to come prepared to answer. It is, therefore, a general rule, that the facts proved must be strictly relevant to the particular charge, and have no reference to any conduct of the prisoner unconnected with such charge.” The foregoing rule is quoted with approval by Roscoe in his work on Criminal Evidence (8th Ed.) vol. 1, page 92. In the case of Snapp v. Commonwealth, 82 Ky. 173, 6 Ky. L. R. 34; the court, after stating the rule that, where several felonies are parts of the same transaction, evidence of all is admissible on an indictment for any one of them, said: “This rule, however, does not apply to a case like this, where a charge of larceny alleged to have been committed on one day is attempted to be established by proof of another larceny committed on a different day, although from the same party and under the slame employment.” In the case of Spurlock v. Commonwealth, 20 S. W. 1095, 14 Ky. Law Rep. 605, the defendant was charged with the murder of one Caywood, and it was shown that he belonged to one or two bands of murderers and maraud
Greenleaf in his work on Evidence, after stating the rule that evidence must correspond with the allegation, says (sec. 52): “This rule excludes all evidence of collateral facts, or those, which are incapable of affording any reasonable presumption or inference, as 'to the principal fact or matter in dispute, and the reason is, that such evidence tends to draw away the minds of the jurors from the point in issue, and to excite prejudice, and mislead them; and, moreover, the adverse party, having had no notice of such a course of evidence, is not prepared to rebut it.” In Cyc. p. 405, it is said: ‘ ‘ The general rule is that on a ■ prosecution for >a particular crime, evidence which
The exceptions to the rule as herein stated are those cases where the commission, of other offenses tends to show the intent with which the act is committed, or the guilty knowledge of the defendant, or where the two crimes are so interwoven that one cannot be proved without the production of the facts which constitute the evidence of the other. Nothing of this sort'existed in the case at bar. If defendant burned Van Meter’s barn at all, the intent to commit the crime with which he stood charged could not be denied; and the fact that Ruark’s house was burned a month before was not so connected with the burning of Yan Meter’s barn as required evidence of the one to be produced in order to establish the other.
Throughout -this opinion we have discussed the proposition under consideration as if the evidence showed that Ruark’s house was burned by an incen•diary, this attitude being more favorable to the1 commonwealth; but, in reality, there was no evidence that the house was burned feloniously; indeed, the trial court ruled, expressly, that it was not competent to establish incendiarism with reference to the burned house; so that the mere fact that the house was burned was allowed to go to the jury as evidence (if they chose to deem it so) of the felonious burning of the barn by the defendant. By the introduction of this incompetent evidence the undisciplined minds of the jurors were given free rein to suspect what they pleased from the co-incidence of the two fires. First, they might suspect, without evidence, that Ruark’s house was burned by an incendiary; second, they might without evidence, suspect that the incendiary was the accused, and then draw the conclusion that,
Alone for the error herein pointed out,, the. judgment is reversed for a new trial consistent with this opinion.
Dissenting Opinion
(dissenting). Appellant was indicted for burning thé barn of S. L. Van Meter. The barn was found afire about 1 o’clock at night under-circumstances indicating that it had been set afire. There was no direct evidence connecting the defendant with' the commission of the crime. . The evidence against hiin was wholly circumstantial. The Commonwealth showed that at the instigation, of Yan Meter appellant had been evicted from the house of Ruark in February and that he had then vowed vengeance against them both, declaring that he would get even with them and that they would regret it. He then shipped his goods away from Lexington under an assumed name, and when found in Cincinnati gave an assumed name, denying his indentity. He also claimed that he had not been back to Kentucky since he left there, after his eviction. A few weeks before Yan Meter’s barn burned Ruark’s house burned, the circumstances pointing to its being set afire, .the
The rule that the commission of other crimes may not be shown is subject to some well-defined exceptions. When the motive of the defendant is material, any fact throwing light upon that question may be shown, and when two crimes are the result of the same motive, or part of the same plan or design, both may be proven. In other words, all that the defendant did in execution of the one design, where that design is a material fact of the case, may be shown, although it involved the commission of other offenses than that for which he is on trial. Proof of the commission of other offenses is also sometimes admitted, to rebut the presumption of accident. Fires occur mysteriously. Every midnight fire is not of incendiary origin. Any fact which reasonably tended to show that the burning of Van Meter’s barn was not accidental, but the work of an incendiary, or which tended to connect the defendant with the burning, was competent. There are a great many authorities illustrating these conclusions. Thus where a prisoner was charged with the murder of her child by poison and the defense was that the taking of the poison was accidental,, evidence was admitted to show that two other children of the prisoner and a lodger in her house had died from the same poison, within a year previous to the death of the child, (Reg. v. Cotton, 12 Cox’s Cr. Cas., 400); and where the prisoner was charged with suffocating her infant child in bed, evi
In 4 Elliott on Evidence, §2720, the rule is thus-stated: “Generally speaking, it may be said that evidence of other crimes is admissible for the purpose of showing — when it fairly tends to do so — motive, intent, the absence of mistake or accident, common scheme or plan embracing the commission of two or more crimes so related to each other that proof of one tends to establish the others, or the identity of the
In O’Brien v. Commonwealth, 89 Ky. 367, 11 Ky. L. R., 534; 12 S. W. 473, this court thus laid down the rule: “Necessarily, where the commission of crime can be shown only by proof of circumstances, the evidence should be allowed to take a wide range, otherwise the guilty would often go unpunished. It is true, there must be some connection between the fact to be proved and the circumstances offered in the support of it, yet any fact which is necessary to introduce or explain another, or which affords an opportunity for any transaction which is in issue, or shows facilities or motives for the commission of the crime, may be proven. Even evidence tending to prove a distinct offense is, therefore admissible, if it shows facilities or motives for the commisson of the one in question. The purpose is to weave a net about the guilty, and often can no more be done by proof of a single circumstance than the building of a house with a single brick.” This was approved in the recent cases of O ’Brien v. Commonwealth, 74 S. W. 666, 24 Ky. Law Rep. 2513, and Bess v. Commonwealth, 116 Ky. 927, 77 S. W. 349, 25 Ky. Law Rep. 1091. The threat of the prisoner was against both Euark and Van Meter. His hostility was directed to both of them. His criminal design which he had in mind was to get even with both of them. If the Commonwealth is allowed to prove only the burning of Van Meter’s barn it will not make out that the defendant carried out his threat. For all that would then appear the jury might be left in doubt whether he had carried out his threat as to Van Meter, there being no evidence that he had car
/'there was sufficient evidence that Ruark’s house was set on fire by an incendiary, to go to the, jury. The fire occurred in the part of the house which the prisoner occupied and with which he was therefore familiar. The way in which the house and barn were fired afforded a reasonable inference that they were the work of the same hand. But if there is any doubt about this, the defendant cannot complain, for on his objection the Commonwealth was required to limit its evidence to that above indicated. The opinion of the court proceéds on the broad ground that evidence that he had committed the previous offense is incom
The court certainly does not mean to commit itself to the doctrine that proof of the commission of other offenses is only competent to show the guilty knowledge of the defendant, or the intent with which he committed the act charged. No text-writer so limits the doctrine. It is-true that if the defendant burned Van Meter’s barn at all, the intent to commit the crime of arson cannot be denied, but the evidence offered was competent to show the intent which induced his presence in the neighborhood at the time of the burning of the barn, and to show that the burning of the barn was not accidental. ' The evidence served to connect the defendant with the burning. Circumstantial evidence is not rejected if it fails to prove a fact absolutely. It is admitted if it reasonably tends to prove it. The common sense of the jury is the reason that our law prefers a jury trial. It proceeds upon the idea that the jury have
I therefore dissent from the opinion of the court.