Lampitt v. State
| Decision Date | 26 January 1926 |
| Docket Number | 1171 |
| Citation | 242 P. 812,34 Wyo. 247 |
| Parties | LAMPITT v. STATE [*] |
| Court | Wyoming Supreme Court |
ERROR to District Court, Big Horn County; PERCY W. METZ, Judge.
Albert Lampitt was convicted of murder in the first degree without capital punishment, and he brings error. Other material facts are stated in the opinion.
Affirmed.
C. A Zaring, Lin I. Noble and Wm. L. Simpson for plaintiff in error.
The evidence of the state is circumstantial, and insufficient to support a verdict of first degree murder, or any verdict against the defendant within the rules; evidence which inferentially proves the principal fact by establishing a condition of circumstances, whose existence is a premise from which the principal facts may be concluded by laws of reason is circumstantial evidence; but each necessary link in the chain must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt to sustain a conviction in a criminal case; each material circumstance must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt; People vs Aiken, 66 Mich. 460; Sumner vs. State, 5 Blackf. 579, 36 Am. Dec. 561; Horn vs. State, 1 Kans. 42-81 Am. Dec. 499N; Com. vs. Webster, 5 Cush (Mass.) 295, Am. Dec. 711N; State vs. Williams, 78 Am. Dec. 253; Rippey vs. Miller, 62 Am. Dec. 182; Gennon vs. People, 127 Ill. 507-11 Am. St. Rep. 147N; to warrant a conviction on circumstantial evidence the jury must be satisfied to a moral certainty and beyond a reasonable doubt of the guilt of the accused; Faulk vs. State, 53 Ala. 415; Com. vs. Webster, supra; each necessary link, and each and every necessary fact must be proven; Walbridge vs. State, 13 Nebr. 236; People vs. Suidici, 110 N.Y. 503; 1 Starkey on Ev. 502; facts consistent with a supposition of guilt are not sufficient; Horn vs. State, 12 Wyo. 80; 1 Wigmore on Evidence 208; If circumstances can be reconciled with some other reasonable theory defendant should not be convicted; Gardner vs. State, 27 Wyo. 323-325; 16 C. J. 766; the entire record in this case demonstrates the existence of excitement and passion in the community which were the governing elements in the conviction of defendant, rather than competent evidence. The entire record is summarized and annexed for the reason that it seems necessary to carefully survey the entire circumstances as shown by the evidence, in order to understand the defects in the chain of circumstances.
David J. Howell, Attorney General, L. C. Sampson, Deputy Attorney General, R. B. West and A. M. Gee for defendant in error.
Points not argued but reserved in plaintiff's brief are:
1st. Refusal to quash jury list which is sustained by McKinney vs. State, 3 Wyo. 713.
2nd. Refusal of continuance for absent witnesses whose testimony was desired for impeachment of prosecuting witness, was properly denied; Wharton's C. P. 3rd ed. 1625; Underhill Criminal Ev. 268; no diligence shown; Keffer vs. State, 12 Wyo. 49.
3rd. Endorsement of additional names on information not error; 7427 C. S.
4th. Evidence on examination of juror which is not contained in the record and not renewable; 735 and 6375 C. S.
5th, 6th, and 7th relate to reception of evidence as to defendant's demeanor and conduct and was proper; 1 Wigmore 755-756; rejection of evidence for impeachment of witness was proper; Horn vs. State, supra; the experimental explosion and destruction of another building to demonstrate nature of explosives was not admissible; Wigmore on Evidence, 442; State vs. Justice (Ore.) 8th P. 337; Diddons vs. Ter. (Okla.) 115 P. 129; Ftires vs. State, 50 Fla. 121; Mueller Bros. Art. Mfg. Co. vs. Fulton Street Market, 181 Ill.App. 685; Underhill's Criminal Evidence 3rd Edition, 368; Hisler vs. State, (Fla.) 42 So. 692; specifications relating to the instructions given or refused; the court's ruling is sustained by People vs. Curtis, 97 Mich. 489; 56 N.W. 925; State vs. Hamilton, 57 Iowa 596; State vs. Young, 105 Mo. 634; 3 Sackett 2844; State vs. Horn, 12 Wyo. 85; Adams vs. People, 193 Ill. 405; State vs. Cornish, 3 Wyo. 95; practically all of defendant's brief is devoted to the sufficiency of the evidence; if the circumstances not absolutely essential, to the ultimate fact to be proven, fail, the failure goes to the weight of the evidence only; Ex parte Jefferies, (Okla.) 41 L. R. A. (NS) 749 and note; Clair et al. vs. People, 10th P. 799; State vs. Novak (Iowa) 79 N.W. 475; Com. vs. People, 11th Am. Dec. 155; Gunn vs. State, 78 N.E. 98; State vs. Furney, 21 P. 213; Ex Parte Hays, 118 P. 609; Lakey vs. State, (Ark.) 55 S.W. 213; Thompkins vs. State, 32 Ala. 569; Bressler vs. People, (Ill.) 3rd N. E. 521; it is sufficient if the evidence produces moral certainty; 8 R. C. L. 225; State vs. Gardner, supra; State vs. Cornish, supra; the jury are the judges of the credibility of the witness and of the weight of conflicting evidence; Phillips vs. Ter. 1 Wyo. 82; State vs. Cornish, supra; Currant vs. State, 12 Wyo. 553; Starks vs. State, 17 Wyo. 55; State vs. Cruskett, 118 P. 1047-1050; Konda vs. U. S. 166 F. 93; People vs. White, 90 P. 471; West vs. State, 68 So. 379; Lin vs. State, 127 N.W. 816; State vs. Moeller, 126 N.W. 568; rivalry involving the affections of a woman constituted the motive for the crime; State vs. Beckner, (Mo.) 3 L. R. A. N. S. 535; Harvey vs. Ter., 65 P. 887; Ex Parte Harkins, 124 P. 940; defendant made threats against deceased. As the case rests on circumstantial evidence, it is necessary to enter upon a more extended discussion of the facts than would be proper in an ordinary case, but the conviction is within the required rules; State vs. Jenkins, 22 Wyo. 34.
Albert Lampitt, the plaintiff in error, hereinafter referred to as the defendant, was convicted by a jury of murder in the first degree without capital punishment, for causing the death of one Harry Foight. Judgment was rendered on the verdict, confining the defendant in the penitentiary for life, and he brings the case here by proceedings in error.
The main error assigned in the case is that the verdict and judgment are not sustained by the evidence. It will, accordingly, be necessary to review the testimony. On account of the gravity of the case, we have carefully gone over the record. It covers well over one thousand typewritten pages, and in order to retain this opinion within reasonable compass, it will only be possible to give a brief outline of the testimony, but it must not be thought that we have not given careful consideration to all the facts and circumstances in this case, though, perhaps, not specifically mentioned herein. The jury were warranted in finding the facts hereinafter mentioned, though the testimony on some of the points was conflicting.
The death of Harry Foight occurred in an explosion at Grass Creek, an oil field situated on a stream called Grass Creek in Hot Springs County, about 28 miles west of the town of Kirby, in this state, where the Ohio Oil Company maintains an oil and gas camp. The deceased was sleeping in a bunk house of said company at the time of his death. This bunk house was a frame building, well constructed, 12 feet wide from east to west, and 40 feet long from north to south. It was divided into six compartments, numbered one to six inclusively, from north to south. The deceased occupied compartment No. 1; that is to say, the compartment at the north end of the building. Worley Seaton occupied the room next to him. The bunk house stood on a slope, higher in the east and north than in the west and south. It rested upon a foundation of concrete 8 inches in width, reinforced at the corners, approximately one foot high on the west and about three or four feet high on the east. There was an opening in the foundation, for the purpose of entering the vacant space under the building, at both the north as well as the sound end, that at the north end being about 2 feet wide and about 2 1/2 feet high, and that at the south end somewhat smaller, both openings being about in the center east and west. It was possible for a man to go under the building by either of these entries, and if desired, enter at one end and come out of the other. The bunk house was heated by a steam plant, with two-inch pipes running north and south under the building and thence into the various rooms. It was lighted by natural gas, three-eighth inch gas pipes running under the foundation and thence upward into each room, each of which was provided with a ventilator for the escape of gas. There were also other gas pipes, two inches in diameter, under the house. These had formerly been used in order to heat the building with gas. But this method of heating had been abandoned some two years prior to the explosion and the gas pipes used in connection therewith had been plugged. Each room in the bunk house had an ordinary board floor, a door on the west and a window on the east. Immediately to the south and southwest of this building were several more bunk houses; immediately to the north stood three small houses, the nearest 38 feet distant, and close to these buildings on the north and west were a meat house, dining room and bungalow. The field, particularly in a northwesterly direction from the bunk house in question, for a distance of a mile or more, was dotted with homes, oil rigs and other structures and buildings, including a post-office, pool room and store, situated about a fourth of a mile northwest of the bunk house in question. The explosion referred to occurred about one o'clock on the morning of May 7, 1921. It and the fire succeeding it, almost completely demolished the bunk house in question, killed Foight, the deceased, and Worley Seaton, and injured the other occupants of the building. For about five feet each way from the northeast corner of the bunk...
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...and all of the facts relied upon should be treated as a cable.' " 295 Md. at 150, 454 A.2d at 350, quoting Lampitt v. State, 34 Wyo. 247, 267-68, 242 P. 812, 818 (1926). Conversely, albeit only implicitly, the Court recognized that "[o]nly when there is 'but one strand' of evidence or succe......
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