Harris v. State
| Decision Date | 17 May 1926 |
| Docket Number | 25600 |
| Citation | 108 So. 446,143 Miss. 102 |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
| Parties | HARRIS v. STATE. [*] |
1. CRIMINAL LAW. Evidence that bloodhound tracked defendant from site of crime is admissible only after proof that dogs were pure bred and trained and reliable, and that track was made by person committing crime.
Although fact that bloodhounds trailed defendant from track at place where person committed crime must have stood is circumstance indicating crime was probably committed by defendant, such evidence is admissible only after preliminary proof that bloodhounds were pure bred, and trained to track human beings, and were reliable and that track where bloodhounds started was made by person committing crime.
2. CRIMINAL LAW. Admitting evidence that bloodhounds tracked defendants held error, in absence of showing that bloodhounds were pure bred, and had been tested and found reliable.
Admitting evidence that bloodhounds tracked defendant from place of crime held error, in absence of showing that bloodhounds were pure bred, and had been tested and found reliable.
APPEAL from circuit court of Lafayette county, HON. T. E. PEGRAM Judge.
John Harris was convicted of murder, and he appeals. Reversed and remanded.
Judgment reversed and cause remanded.
Geo. T and Chas. S. Mitchell and J. W. T. Falkner, for appellant.
The first assignment of error goes to the action of the court in admitting in evidence, over objection and exception of defendant, the testimony in regard to the action of the so-called bloodhounds. While there is a diversity of opinion among the courts of the different states as to the admissibility of dog testimony, yet our court has aligned itself with those courts holding such testimony competent when the proper predicate has been laid. Spears v. State, 92 Miss. 613, 46 So. 166. The opinion in this case was based upon the holding in the Pettigo case, 103 Ky. 41, 42 L. R. A. 432, and the Hunter case, 143 N.C. 607, 56 S.E. 547. But in the Spears case, Chief Justice WHITFIELD in delivering the opinion of the court stated distinctly and positively the necessary prerequisites to the introduction of such testimony and in this connection used the following language:
"The testimony sufficiently shows that these dogs had been well trained to track human beings, that they were of pure blood, that in this case they were put on the trail at a place where it was shown that the criminal agency must have had its origin (one witness stated in about six feet of the place), that the owner of the dogs, Tate, was an experienced dog trainer, that these dogs had pedigrees showing that they were of pure blood, and that they had been subjected to severe and satisfactory tests in the tracking of persons." (Italics ours.) Until these prerequisites are shown, this testimony of the dogs is not admissible in evidence.
When the owner of these dogs, Camp, was asked if they were registered, he answered that they were subject to registration. Counsel for defendant immediately objected to further testimony as to the dogs, which objection was overruled by the court and a proper exception taken. The statement of the witness that they were subject to registration was simply the expression of his opinion. The announcement of the law as given in the Spears case as to the necessary qualifications of the dogs was utterly ignored.
Should this court deviate in the least from the holding in the Spears case, then we are most certainly treading upon dangerous ground. We should recognize that the testimony of dogs is hearsay of the rankest type and can barely escape a violation of the letter of the constitution, much less its spirit. The dogs are not subject to cross-examination and the jury does not even have the opportunity to see the dogs and judge them. Such testimony cannot be given by the dogs themselves but only by a deeply interested interpreter, the owner of the dogs who is prompted to show to the world that his dogs are invariably correct for the reason that he has trained them for pay; and the more successful they are and the more successful he pictures them to be, the more profitable they will be to him.
Again, so-called bloodhound testimony has a strange and convincing effect upon the average juror. For a discussion of "bloodhound" testimony, see Underhill's Criminal Evidence (3 Ed.), sec. 569, p. 810.
To show the doubt of our own supreme court as to the value or credibility of dog testimony, even where all the necessary prerequisites have been shown, our court has twice held that the testimony of the dogs alone is not sufficient to sustain a conviction, but that other and human testimony must be introduced to corroborate the dogs. Carter v. State, 64 So. 215, 106 Miss. 507; Scott v. State, 66 So. 973, 108 Miss. 464.
L. C. Andrews and Rush H. Knox, Attorney-General, for the state.
The appellant asks a reversal of this case because he says that the court erred in admitting the evidence as to the acts and conduct of the bloodhounds. What was said by the court in the Spears case, 92 Miss. 613, can well be said with reference to the evidence in this case.
In the instant case the record shows that these dogs had had broad experience and that they had been very successful on former occasions in trailing down and identifying other prisoners that they were put on the trail where it was shown that the criminal agency must have had its origin (one witness says about fifteen feet from the window where the track was found); that the owner of the dogs, Camp, was an experienced dog trainer; that the dogs in question were subject to registration--and there is a difference between registration and pedigrees. This court did not hold in the Spears case, and has never held, that it was a prerequisite to the admissibility of bloodhound evidence that the dogs should be registered. As we understand the Spears case, it was merely testified to there that Tate's dogs were experienced dogs and that they had pedigrees showing that they were pure blood; it did not show that they were registered but merely subject to registration. In the case at bar, Camp swore that his dogs had been well trained to trail human beings, that he was an experienced trainer and that his dogs were subject to registration, meaning, of course, that the pedigree or lienage of Bulah and Hambone was such as to entitle them to registration,...
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