Hale v. Wingo

• Decision Date: 09 October 1970
• Citation: 459 S.W.2d 766
• Parties: John T. HALE, Appellant, v. John WINGO, Warden, Kentucky State Penitentiary, Eddyville, Kentucky, Appellee.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court — District of Kentucky

Page 766

459 S.W.2d 766

John T. HALE, Appellant, v. John WINGO, Warden, Kentucky State Penitentiary, Eddyville, Kentucky, Appellee.

Court of Appeals of Kentucky.

Oct. 9, 1970.

Rehearing Denied Dec. 18, 1970.

Joseph J. Grace, Paducah, for appellant.

John Breckinridge, Atty. Gen., George Rabe, Asst. Atty. Gen., Frankfort, for appellee.

CULLEN, Commissioner.

John T. Hale, on his examining trial in the quarterly court of Caldwell County on a charge of murdering one Lillian Catherine Denham, was denied bail and was ordered to be confined in the state penitentiary for safekeeping pending trial. Hale then sought release on bail through habeas corpus proceedings in the Caldwell Circuit Court. His application was denied and he is appealing here from the order of denial.

Evidence for the purpose of showing Hale's guilt was presented in the quarterly court on the examining trial. This evidence was considered by the circuit court in the habeas corpus proceeding, together with additional evidence introduced in the latter proceeding. The issue, under Section 16 of the Kentucky Constitution, was whether the proof of Hale's guilt was evident or the presumption of his guilt great.

The evidence was that the alleged victim failed to return to her family home on a Saturday in June 1966, and was never seen again by anyone thereafter, except by her sister Carolyn, who saw her on the Friday following the Saturday of her failure to return home. Four years later a badly decomposed body, consisting mostly of bones was found in an abandoned cistern on a farm which Hale had occupied during 1965. The body was examined by a pathologist who said it was the body of a female 18 to 23 years of age, from 5'2" to 5'5" in height, who had weighed from 120 to 140 pounds, and had brown hair. These characteristics closely conformed with those of the missing girl. The girl's father and sister undertook to identify the body as being the girl's on the basis that the legs, on which there were some remnants of flesh, looked like hers, and the teeth looked like hers. Found in the cistern were wires and weights, some still attached to part of the body, indicating that the body had been weighter to sink.

Following the discovery of the body the missing girl's sister Carolyn for the first time disclosed that on the Friday following the girl's failure to return home Carolyn had seen her, first in a house trailer and later in Hale's house, in the presence of Hale and one Bill Rogers. Her testimony at the examining trial was that her sister, called Catherine by the family, was in a bloody condition, apparently as the result of an abortion, and seemed to be critically ill. Hale and Rogers refused Carolyn's...