Crumpton v. United States
| Decision Date | 02 February 1891 |
| Citation | 34 L.Ed. 958,138 U.S. 361,11 S.Ct. 355 |
| Parties | CRUMPTON v. UNITED STATES |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
A. H. Garland, for plaintiff in error.
Sol. Gen. Taft, for defendant in error.
Mr. Justice BROWN, after stating the facts as above, delivered the opinion of the court.
1. It is clear that the question, whether the verdict was contrary to the evidence, which is the first error assigned, is not one which can be considered in this court, if there were any evidence proper to go to the jury in support of the verdict.
The testimony on behalf of the government tended to show that deceased had, on the 3d of November, about $50 on his person; and that on the morning of that day, which was Sunday, after having slept together the night before, the prisoner and the deceased, riding two horses belonging to the deceased, started out from the house of Mrs. Harris, to visit some young women by the name of Davis, who lived about four miles away. The prisoner was armed with a pistol.
About noon of that day shots were heard by a witness for the government in the neighborhood of the hole where the body of the deceased was afterwards found, and in a short time the defendant was seen riding one horse, and leading the other away from this place. Towards evening of the same day the defendant returned to a house in the neighborhood of Mrs. Harris' with the two horses. When inquired of as to the deceased he said that they had met a man riding in a buggy on the prairie, who had induced the deceased to go with him to the Pawnee Agency. He stated that the deceased had directed him to bring the horses back; to take charge of all his effects; and to pay his debts in case he did not return by a certain time.
Three days before Christmas the body of the deceased was found in the hole above referred to, which was some six or seven feet deep, on the bank of Coody's creek, and some three miles from Mrs. Harris'. His hat had a bullet hole in it, and his broken skull showed where the bullet had entered it, and caused his death. There was no doubt, from what was found on his person, as to whose corpse it was, though the face and front part of his skull had been battered so as to prevent recognition of the features. No money was found in his pockets.
It appeared from other evidence, and was admitted by the defendant, that some time before the disappearance of the deceased the defendant had come upon this hole, and was familiar with its location. There was evidence showing that an overcoat belonging to the deceased was in the possession of the defendant the next day after the disappearance of the deceased. Before the finding of the body on the 22d of December, the defendant exhibited two letters, which he claimed to have received from the deceased at the Pawnee Agency. They were letters without envelopes. Defendant explained the absence of envelopes by saying that the children had destroyed them. On the trial the letters themselves could not be found, and were not produced. When the body of the deceased was found, and the report of it came to the defendant, he immediately left the settlement in which he lived and went away some 20 or 25 miles, where he was arrste d.
The evidence for the defendant was conflicting. One man testified that he saw a government witness, Burt by name, in a carriage with the deceased, on the Sunday in question, going towards the place where the body was found, and that later he saw him returning without the deceased. This evidence was at variance with the statement of the defendant himself, who swore that the man in whose buggy the deceased drove away was not Burt.
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