Hunt v. State

• Decision Date: 28 March 1956
• Docket Number: No. 29187,29187
• Citation: 133 N.E.2d 48,235 Ind. 276
• Parties: Huron Kendall HUNT, Appellant, v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee.
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

Page 48

133 N.E.2d 48

235 Ind. 276

Huron Kendall HUNT, Appellant, v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee.

No. 29187.

Supreme Court of Indiana.

March 28, 1956.

Herbert L. Myers, Indianapolis, Fulmer & Myers, Indianapolis, of counsel, for appellant.

Edwin K. Steers, Atty. Gen., Richard M. Givan, Deputy Atty. Gen., for appellee.

EMMERT, Judge.

This is an appeal from a judgment on a verdict which found appellant guilty of murder in the first degree as charged in an indictment, and fixing his punishment at imprisonment for life. The error assigned is the overruling of appellant's motion for new trial. The evidence, when viewed most favorably to the State, discloses the following:

Appellant and his wife, Hester Hunt, were each 55 years of age, had been married since 1917, and on August 7, 1953, the date of the homicide, were residing at 1144 North Alabama Street in Indianapolis, where she operated a rooming house. They were not cohabiting as husband and wife though living in the same house, and she then had pending an action for divorce. Hunt had stated to one of the roomers that the decedent Forrest Gifford, who was an odd job man about the house, was breaking up his home and he was going to kill him. Both men were heavy drinkers, and at one time when drinking had had a fight in the kitchen. The decedent was about 50 years of age, and had a diseased condition of the neck which was accustomed to break and drain, and which he thought was a cancer. His bedroom was upstairs and numbered 7.

Appellant, the night before the killing, slept downstairs, but about 9 o'clock in the morning went upstairs to the decedent's room. Both had been drinking that morning, and shortly before roon appellant came downstairs and told his wife he had killed Gif, and asked his daughter to call the police, which was done, and a number of officers arrived shortly after 12 noon.

The decedent was found dead in his bedroom lying along the west wall between it and a bed. The inside of his right palm had been cut twice, one a deep gash almost to the bone, there was a stab wound on his left shoulder, one on his jaw and a number of stabs and cuts on his throat. Death was due to loss of blood from the severance of both the right and left internal jugular veins. He had been dead about two hours when the officers arrived, and the blood had congealed upon the floor. The officers found an open pocket knife on the floor with blood thereon, and a butcher knife also on the floor, but with no blood on it. Appellant's shirt had several blood spots on it, and there were a few such spots on the bed. The officers took pictures of the decedent and the bedroom, and these were introduced in evidence.

Before the appellant was taken to police headquarters, in the presence of his wife and daughter, several of the police officers asked him if the pocket knife was his, to which he answered he did not know. One question was asked, 'Did you stab the man upstairs?' and he answered, 'I don't know, ask my wife.' To other questions he answered, 'Ask my wife.'

At about two o'clock P.M. of the same day, the appellant, his wife and daughter were at police headquarters, where the officers asked appellant if he wanted to make a statement, and he said, 'Ask my wife.' His wife was then questioned in his presence, and the questions and answers typewritten and signed by her in appellant's presence. After these questions and answers were read to appellant, he then requested the officers to ask his wife if he didn't see her and Gifford in the bathroom one night kissing, which was asked, but she made no answer. Appellant was asked if he wanted to make an oral statement, and he said, 'I sat on the bed in Mr. Gifford's room and Mr. Gifford was stabbing himself with a knife, and I tried to stop him, and then I went downstairs and told my wife I killed Gif, because she thought a lot of Gif.'

Only errors considered in appellant's original brief in the 'Argument' section will be considered, since failure to follow our rule on this waives any alleged errors. Rule 2-17(e, f). Appellant objected to permitting the police officer Dennis Maxey to testify as to a conversation downstairs at the house where in the presence of the appellant his wife stated he came downstairs and told her he just killed Gif, on the ground the corpus delicti had not been rpoved. The police officer had previously described the position and condition of the decedent in the upstairs bedroom, and from this evidence the court and jury had the right to draw the reasonable inference that someone had feloniously killed him. 'Proof of the corpus delicti means proof that the specific crime charged has actually been committed by someone. Parker v. State, 1950, 228 Ind. 1, 6, 88 N.E.2d 556, 89 N.E.2d 442, supra.' Dennis v. State, 1952, 230 Ind. 210, 216, 102 N.E.2d 650, 653.

Moreover, 'The order of proof is, as in other cases, within the sound discretion of the trial court, Annotation 127 A.L.R. 1141 * * *.' Parker v. State, 1949, 228 Ind. 1, 12, 88 N.E.2d 556, 89 N.E.2d 442, 443. ¹ There was no error in admitting this evidence.

Appellant further contends it was error for the trial court to permit the introduction in evidence of a statement made by appellant's wife in the form of written questions and answers signed by her, on...