Hall v. State
| Decision Date | 06 January 1928 |
| Docket Number | 25,337 |
| Citation | 159 N.E. 420,199 Ind. 592 |
| Parties | Hall v. State of Indiana |
| Court | Indiana Supreme Court |
1. CRIMINAL LAW.---Rule as to accused being brought before court for trial without shackles.---Ordinarily, the accused must be brought into court for trial without irons or being in any manner shackled, but a different rule prevails where the defendant is a desperate and dangerous criminal and there is evident danger of his escape or of harming those about him p. 600.
2. CRIMINAL LAW.---Discretion of court in ordering defendant restrained in reasonable manner during trial.---Where the trial court has good reason to believe that the defendant is a desperate and dangerous criminal, and that there is serious danger of his harming those about him in the courtroom or of his attempting to escape or being released by others, it may in the exercise of a sound and enlightened discretion, order him restrained in such reasonable manner as it deems necessary, and the court's action in so doing will not be error unless there has been a clear abuse of discretion. p 600.
3. CRIMINAL LAW.---The court may refuse to order an accused to be unshackled during the trial on knowledge gained from sources other than evidence offered at the trial. p. 603.
4. CRIMINAL LAW.---Refusing to sustain motion requiring removal of leg irons from defendant during trial not error.---Where the defendant was on trial for murder while he and another were engaged in robbery, both armed with revolvers which they threatened to use, and the defendant had made a desperate but unsuccessful attempt to escape from jail and his codefendant had escaped, and defendant had secured a revolver while in jail and shot at the sheriff with it, and the court had been informed that an effort might be made to release the prisoner during the trial, there was no error in overruling defendant's motion to order the removal of leg irons from his ankles during the trial. p. 603.
5. CRIMINAL LAW.---A liberally wide latitude should be allowed in the cross-examination of witnesses, especially expert witnesses. p. 604.
6. CRIMINAL LAW.---Excluding questions to physician on cross-examination was harmless where same testimony available by recalling witness.---In a prosecution for murder, where the defendant was charged with clubbing the deceased over the head with a revolver and fracturing his skull, resulting in his death ten days later, excluding questions on cross-examination of a physician who performed an autopsy as to treatment of the wound was harmless, as the defendant could have recalled the physician as his own witness, but he made no attempt to show that the cause of the death was maltreatment of the wound. p. 604.
7. CRIMINAL LAW.---Excluding question to physician on cross-examination was not error where question was substantially answered in response to another question.---In a prosecution for murder, where the defendant was charged with beating the deceased over the head with a revolver and fracturing his skull, the exclusion of a question to a physician on cross-examination as to whether an X-ray picture should have been taken was not error, where it was substantially answered in response to another question p. 605.
8. CRIMINAL LAW.---Sustaining state's objections to questions to physician on cross-examination was harmless where answer thereto could not have changed result.---In a prosecution for murder, where the defendant was charged with beating his victim over the head with a revolver and fracturing his skull, sustaining objections to questions on cross-examination of a physician as to treatment of the victim's wounds was harmless where favorable answers thereto would not have authorized a verdict of acquittal, p 606.
9. HOMICIDE.---If wound causes death indirectly, as by blood poisoning developing therefrom, he who inflicts the wound is responsible.---It is not indispensable to a conviction for murder that a wound should be fatal and the direct cause of death, since, if the wound caused death indirectly through a chain of natural causes and effects, unchanged by human action, such as the development of blood poisoning therefrom, he who inflicted the wound is responsible. p. 607.
10 HOMICIDE.---One who inflicts a serious wound on another may be guilty of murder although improper medical treatment may contribute to the death.---A person who inflicts a serious wound upon another, calculated to destroy or endanger his life, will not be relieved of responsibility, though unskilled or improper medical treatment aggravates the wound and contributes to the death. p. 608.
11. CRIMINAL LAW.---Criminality of an act is not diminished by other causes contributing to result.---Every person is held to contemplate and be responsible for the natural consequences of his own acts, and the criminality of an act is not altered or diminished by the fact that other causes co-operated in producing the result. p. 608.
12. HOMICIDE.---Evidence held to negative claim that death resulted from maltreatment of wounds inflicted by defendant.---In a prosecution for murder, where the defendant was charged with beating his victim over the head with a revolver and fracturing his skull, death resulting ten days later from blood poisoning from the wounds inflicted, the evidence was held to negative the claim that the death was caused by maltreatment of the wounds. p. 609.
13. CRIMINAL LAW.---Question put to state's witness on cross-examination as to whether he had seen article in local paper properly excluded.---In a prosecution for murder committed while robbing a store, where state's witnesses testified that men held in jail as suspects were not the men who had robbed their employer's store, question put to such witness on cross-examination as to whether he had seen a certain article in a local newspaper was properly excluded. p. 610.
14. CRIMINAL LAW.---Court properly admonished jury to disregard remarks of counsel and newspaper article that had been shown to them by counsel.---In a prosecution for murder, where the defendant's attorney, in cross-examining the state's witnesses, asked them whether they had seen a certain article in a local paper, but, the question being excluded, afterward held up the paper so that the jury might see the headlines and remarked that they had the case solved there, the court properly admonished the jury to disregard the remarks of counsel and to understand that the newspaper was not in evidence. p. 610.
15. WITNESSES.---Cross-examination of one witness upon matters not covered in direct examination cannot be had for the purpose of impeaching another witness. p. 611.
16. WITNESSES.---Exclusion of question as to another witness' statement as to his uncertainty about identification of parties suspected of crime held proper.---In a prosecution for murder, where the state's witnesses had visited the jail to identify some suspects that had been arrested, a question put to one of them, on cross-examination, as to whether his companion had not said he was not certain, was properly excluded. p. 611.
17. CRIMINAL LAW.---Testimony that escaped codefendant in crime of murder while robbing store was known by several aliases was properly received.---In a prosecution for murder committed while defendant and another were robbing a store, testimony that defendant's codefendant, who had escaped, was known by a number of aliases, was not objectionable on the ground that the fact that he had several aliases would "deprave" the character of one not on trial. p. 612.
18. CRIMINAL LAW.---Admitting in evidence murder victim's revolver was not error where evidence showed defendant's connection with it after the murder.---In a prosecution for murder committed while defendant and another were robbing a storeroom, admission in evidence of a revolver that had belonged to the victim was not error where a witness for the state testified that he had found the revolver in a woman's room which the two defendants frequented, the woman testified to having taken it from the codefendant's coat after the robbery, and defendant's connection with it was otherwise shown. p. 612.
19. HOMICIDE.---Testimony that defendant had possession of revolver on another occasion not inadmissible as showing commission of another offense.---In a prosecution for murder committed while defendant and another, armed with deadly weapons, were robbing a storeroom, where a good-faith effort was made by the state to have a witness identify a revolver she saw in defendant's possession as the one used by him in the robbery, evidence that the witness subsequently saw the two bandits with three revolvers in their hands, was not inadmissible on the theory that it showed the commission of another offense. p. 613.
20 HOMICIDE.---Articles including cartridge belt full of ammunition, revolver holster and cartridge box found in automobile occupied by defendants when arrested, and envelope found in room occupied by them, were admissible in evidence.---In a prosecution for murder committed while defendant and another, armed with deadly weapons, were robbing a storeroom, a black Boston bag found in the automobile occupied by the defendant and a codefendant when they were arrested containing a leather revolver holster and a cartridge belt full of ammunition and also part of a cartridge box and an envelope addressed to accused found in a room which had been occupied by the two bandits, were admissible in evidence. p. 614.
21. CRIMINAL LAW.---Subsequent acts and conversations of codefendants relative to crime admissible against either of them.---In a prosecution for a crime committed by two persons, their subsequent acts and conversations relative to the crime are provable against either of them as admissions against interest. p....
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