72 N.W. 913 | N.D. | 1807
The appellant, Alec Coudotte, was informed against by the state’s attorney of Emmons County for the crime
The confessed accomplices are Philip Ireland and Paul Holy Track. These parties also accuse the defendant and one George Defender with being present, and aiding and participating in the commission of the crime. All these parties are Indians, or persons of Indian descent. They belong at the Standing Rock Indian agency. This agency is situated on the west bank of the Missouri River, and opposite the town of Winona, in Emmons County. The residence of Thomas Spicer, where the crime was committed, was about i% miles north of Winona, and on the same side of the river, which at that season of the year (February 17th) was frozen over solidly, and could be crossed at any point. The crime that was committed has few parallels in atrocity and wanton cruelty. The sole object for its commission was to plunder the house. To accomplish this purpose, Thomas Spicer and his wife, and his wife’s aged mother, Mrs. Waldron, and their married daughter, Mrs. Rouse, were foully murdered; and then, actuated, it would appear, solely by the instincts of a savage, the perpetrators proceeded to murder the twin baby boys of Mrs. Rouse. Six persons in all were killed. It could not be otherwise than that a deed of such depravity should arouse the community where committed almost to frenzy. Every instinct of humanity and of justice demanded the swift and certain punishment of the inhuman miscreants whose minds could conceive and whose hands could execute a deed so dastardly. Standing face to face with such a crime the judgment of a juror, however intelligent
We shall discuss the testimony only so far as may be necessary to an understanding of those portions which the state claims furnish the corroboration required by the statute. It appears that after Coudotte’s arrest, and prior to his preliminary hearing, he was confined in jail at Williamsport, the county seat of Emmons County. While thus confined he was visited by several parties who spoke the Sioux language, which was Coudotte’s native tongue — and he could speak no other — and they endeavored to procure from him a confession. Prior to this time he had gashed himself in the abdomen with a knife. The state claims, and perhaps correctly, that this was an attempt to commit suicide. He was suffering from the wound at the time of the interview, and stated to the witnesses that he expected to die from its effects. In that interview, if we accept as true what the witnesses state, Coudotte said that he was in Winona on said February 17, 1897; that he left there about two o’clock in the afternoon, and crossed
The learned state’s attorney claims much in the way of corroboration from the testimony of one Welch, who testifies that he thinks he saw the defendant and George Defender together on horseback at the Ft. Yates mule corral at or a little after six o’clock in the evening of the day on which the murder was committed. This would, at best, be very dangerous testimony on which to base a conviction for murder. The witness was 200 yards — nearly one-eighth of a mile — distant from the parties. We know that at or soon after 6 o’clock in the evening of February 17th, in this latitude, it is nearly or quite dark. Positive identification at that distance would be impossible, and in fact the
The state also claims some corroboration in the evidence relating to some beef which it is admitted was sold by Coudotte in
Persons who examined the body of Thomas Spicer testified that four different weapons had been used, either in committing the murder or mutilating the body, to-wit, a gun loaded with a leaden bullet and shot, an ax, a pitchfork, and a spade or shovel. The state claims that this raises a presumption that four persons participated in the crime. This is surmise, merely. . The dastard who fired the gun would not hesitate to dispatch a wounded victim with an ax. There is no presumption that a murderer will use but one weapon. But if, from the fact that four weapons were used, a jury would be warranted in saying that four persons participated in the crime, where is the corroborating testimony that declares, or tends to declare, who these four persons were? The use of the weapons points as directly towards any other Indian on the reservation, or any citizen of Winona, as towards this defendant. This evidence is a striking instance of the precise vice against which the rule as to corroborating an accomplice is directed. It fails to tend to identify the party.
There remains but one further fact from which the state claims any corroboration whatever — the only fact that has given us any trouble — and that is the attempted suicide. Upon this question
We have discussed every point in the evidence from which the state claims any corroboration whatever, and we find that in each instance the testimony fails to meet the statutory requirement. It follows that the motion for a new trial should have been granted, and that the judgment based upon the verdict must be
Reversed.