Moon v. State

• Decision Date: 07 June 1921
• Docket Number: Criminal 501
• Citation: 22 Ariz. 418,198 P. 288
• Parties: CHARLES MOON, Appellant, v. STATE, Respondent
• Court: Arizona Supreme Court

198 P. 288

22 Ariz. 418

CHARLES MOON, Appellant, v. STATE, Respondent

Criminal No. 501

Supreme Court of Arizona

June 7, 1921

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of the County of Cochise. Alfred C. Lockwood, Judge. Affirmed.

STATEMENT OF FACTS.

The defendant has appealed from a judgment of the superior court of Cochise county, whereby he was convicted of the offense of burglary in the first degree, and pursuant to which he was sentenced to the state prison at Florence for an indeterminate period of not less than five nor more than fifteen years.

The facts are substantially as follows: John Treu's butcher-shop, situated in Bisbee, was burglarized, in the night-time, on the 6th of September, 1919. The safe in the shop was broken open and rifled and about $1,700 to $1,750 belonging to John Treu, was stolen. The cash register was removed a few feet from the counter and broken.

On the following morning the sheriff of Cochise county, together with others, carefully examined the premises at the scene of the burglary. It appears that the sheriff had had previous experience with finger-printing, and that he at once examined the doors of the safe and tools and other surfaces upon which he might reasonably expect to develop finger-prints; that among other things he discovered finger-prints upon a porcelain slab on the front of the cash register which had been removed from the counter to the floor; that upon the development of the finger-prints upon this porcelain slab it was seen that a right hand had been laid upon this slab leaving the impression of four fingers, the entire print being sufficiently clear to distinguish the impression of the four fingers. However, the impression of two of the fingers to wit, the index and little fingers, were blurred beyond possibility of identification. The print of the middle finger was blurred at the center, but on development well-defined ridges were found along the margin of this finger-print. The print of the ring or third finger, however, was exceptionally perfect -- perfect in the sense that it was approximately a complete and perfect picture of what is technically called a "dab" impression of the end of the ring finger of the right hand. The officer caused the finger-prints to be carefully photographed by a competent photographer and the photograph of the print, together with the original slab, was positively identified and introduced in evidence in the case. One of the officers, who aided in the preliminary examination of the premises, discovered a piece of human skin adhering to a closet door situated along-side the safe which had been broken open; that this piece of skin which he found was bloody, and that drops of blood were found upon the closet door at and about the place where the piece of human skin adhered to the door; that blood was spattered over the front door of the safe and about the interior of the safe, so that it was obvious that the same person who had rifled the safe had injured some part of his hand, and that working about and in the safe the wound had bled sufficiently to have sprinkled drops of blood.

The officers at once made a search about the town for a man whose hand had been hurt, and soon ascertained that the defendant had an injured hand, and he was thereupon arrested and taken to the sheriff's office, where his hand was examined and finger-prints taken without any objection upon his part.

Upon examining the defendant's hand it was noticed that there was a similarity between the wound on his hand and the piece of skin found at Treu's butcher-shop. One of the officers brought the piece of skin and compared it with the wound. The piece of skin was submitted to a doctor, who also compared it with the wound. Both the officer and the doctor testified that the piece of skin conformed to the wound upon the right hand of the defendant.

Enlargements of the photograph of the finger-print on the porcelain slab and of the actual finger-print of the defendant were made for the purposes of comparison and submitted to five finger-print experts, each of whom testified that the finger-print upon the porcelain slab was made by the hand of the defendant.

Mr Louis B. Whitney and Mr. Alexander B. Baker, for Appellant.

The Attorney General of Arizona and Mr. R. N. French, County Attorney, for the State.

OPINION

BAKER, J.

(After Stating the Facts as Above.) Error is assigned upon the usual ground that the evidence is insufficient upon which to base the conviction or sustain the judgment. After a very careful review of the evidence in the case, we fail to see any merit in the assignment. The evidence for the prosecution rests principally upon the correspondence or exactness of certain "finger-prints." This evidence was introduced by several expert witnesses, who testified in detail as to their study of and inquiry into the subject of finger-prints as a means of identification. They claimed to have made a close study of the subject, to have had extensive, practical experience in the comparison of finger-print impressions, and to be able by comparison of enlarged photographs of finger-prints to determine questions of identity, claiming that it furnished an accurate means thereof, since "never in the world were there two sets that exactly corresponded." The experts agreed in their testimony that the admitted finger-print impressions of the defendant corresponded exactly with the finger-print impressions appearing upon the porcelain slab of the cash register which the proof showed had been attempted to be rifled at the time the safe was burglarized and the money stolen, and that these impressions were made by the same person. The additional evidence that the defendant had a bleeding wound upon his right hand, early in the morning after the commission of the burglary, and that the piece of human skin found adhering to the closet door situated alongside of the safe which had been broken open corresponded with the wound upon the defendant's hand, tended also to connect the defendant with the commission of the crime.

The defendant does not deny that the safe was burglarized, but he claims that during the whole time he was so far from the place where the crime was committed that he could not have participated in it. He attempts to explain the wound on his hand by saying that he received it while cutting some kindling on the morning after the burglary. Of course, evidence of this character conflicted with the evidence for the prosecution, but it was for the jury to settle this conflict. There can be no doubt, if the evidence for the prosecution was true, that the defendant was present at the scene of the burglary and committed the crime.

The case is one of first impression in the courts of the state and is a novel one, although students of the science claim that the use of finger-prints in making personal identification was known to the Chinese before the birth of Christ. They claim that a finger-print is "an unforgeable signature" and is the most positive and certain means of identification known to men. Mr. Frederick A. Brayley, in his work entitled "Finger Prints Identification," uses the following emotional language:

"'God's finger-print language,' the voiceless speech and the indelible writing imprinted on the fingers, hand palms, and foot soles of humanity by the allwise Creator for some good and useful purpose in the structure, regulation, and well-being of the human body, has been utilized for ages before the civilization of Europe as a means of identification by the Chinese, and who shall say is not a part of the plan of the Creator for the ultimate elimination of crime by means of surrounding the evilly disposed by safeguards of prevention, and for the unquestionable evidence of identity in all cases where such is necessary, whether it be in wills, deeds, insurance, or commercial mediums of finance, as well as in the discovering and identification of lawbreakers."

It seems to be well settled, both in England and in this country, that evidence of the correspondence of finger-print impressions for the purpose of identification, when introduced by qualified finger-print experts, is admissible in criminal cases; the weight and value of such testimony always being a question for the jury.

The historical facts and the more recent legal decisions upon the subject are collated in a very able opinion handed down by Wadhams, J., in the case of People v. Sallow, reported in 100 Misc. 447, 165 N.Y.S. 915-925, which we here reproduce in part:

" . . Scientific authority declares that finger-prints are reliable as a means of identification. 10 Ency. Brit. (11th Ed.) 376. The first recorded finger-prints were used as a manual seal, to give a personal mark of authenticity to documents. Such prints are found in the Assyrian clay tablets in the British Museum. Finger-prints were first used to record the identity of individuals officially by Sir William Herschel, in Bengal, to check forgeries by natives in India in 1858. C. Ainsworth Mitchell, in 'Science and the Criminal,' 1911, p. 51. Finger-print records have been constantly used as a basis of information for the courts since Sir Francis Galton proved that the papillary ridges which cover the inner surface of the hands and the sols of the feet form patterns, the main details of which remain the same from the sixth month of the embryonic period until decomposition sets in after death, and Sir Edward Henry, the head of the Metropolitan Police Force of London, formulated a practical system of classification, subsequently simplified by an Argentine named Vucetich. The system has been in general use in the criminal courts in England since 1891. It is claimed that by means of finger-prints the metropolitan police...