Pollard v. State, 28619
| Decision Date | 16 November 1950 |
| Docket Number | No. 28619,28619 |
| Citation | 229 Ind. 62,94 N.E.2d 912 |
| Parties | POLLARD v. STATE. |
| Court | Indiana Supreme Court |
Frank A. Symmes, Charles W. Symmes, Indianapolis, Waldo Ging, Greenfield, for appellant.
J. Emmett McManamon, Atty. Gen., Walter O. Lewis, Deputy Atty. Gen., for appellee.
The appellant was tried and convicted before a jury in the lower court on a charge of murder in the first degree and his punishment assessed at imprisonment during life.
Appellant argues that all the evidence as to the actual killing was confined to his written statements which were confirmed by his own testimony, and that due to the fact that each of these statements is to the effect that appellant shot the deceased in self-defense there was no evidence that a crime was committed.
The evidence introduced by the state tends to establish the following facts: On April 11, 1946, at about 8:30 a. m., a certain log house, then unoccupied, located about two miles East of Ladoga, Montgomery County, was seen burning. After the fire had subsided certain witnesses for the state approached and found in the ruins and burning embers the skull and torso of a human being, minus hands and feet. On the same day, at about 9:40 a. m., a witness for the state testified that while working in a field about one mile North of Advance, Boone County, which is a village approximately ten miles Northeast of Ladoga, he observed an automobile stop at the bridge over Racoon Creek where it remained for three or four minutes. He saw the door of the automobile open and one or more persons get out; that immediately thereafter he saw a fire under the bridge; that this witness and another witness ran to the bridge and attempted to extinguish the fire by stamping it and pouring water on it. That he then saw an army blanket in the fire and pulled it out, from which tumbled a human foot and two human hands. That thereupon these witnesses called the sheriff of Boone County who arrived in about twenty minutes to whom they turned over the blanket and the hands and foot. That it was also observed there was a railroad fusee in the fire. Upon examination of the finger-prints of the severed hands it was found they were the hands of the deceased, Leland Miller.
State witness, John Wood, testified that at about 5:00 p. m., April 10, 1946, while he was in the company of the deceased at a certain street corner in Indianapolis, the defendant, accompanied by one Harry Adams, drove up in his automobile to where the witness and the deceased were; ther the witness and the deceased entered the defendant's automobile and thereupon the four of them in said automobile went to a certain tavern in the city of Indianapolis; that while there the defendant stated to the witness, out of the hearing and presence of the deceased and Adams, that he should not be seen too much with him, the defendant, tonight, meaning the night of April 10th, as he was going to kill the deceased. Thereupon the witness asked the defendant why he was going to kill the deceased and the defendant answered, 'I am not going to do ten years for a guy like that'. The witness then stated to the defendant, . Whereupon the defendant remarked that he could not make a deal with Miller, but did not say what kind of a deal. This witness also stated that when he entered the defendant's automobile as above set out he noticed in the rear seat an army blanket and a fusee similar to the blanket and fusee which the other state witnesses testified they had removed from the fire.
The evidence further discloses that the defendant, after his arrest, signed two written confessions, each of which was received into evidence without objection. In the first of these confessions the defendant admitted that he had met the deceased and Wood at the time and in the manner as Wood had testified. He also stated that Wood left them at the tavern and that he, Adams and the deceased then went to the defendant's house; that while there the deceased made a 'pass' at him with a knife and the defendant thereupon grabbed his gun and shot the decedent; that he got an army blanket, wrapped the deceased's body in it and decided to burn the body; that he procured five gallons of gasoline at a filling station and proceeded to drive to a point near Ladoga, Indiana, where there was a vacant house; that he removed the body from his car and chopped off the hands and one foot. He then took the body into the house, poured gasoline on it and set it afire; that he wrapped the hands and foot in the blanket, placed them in the trunk of his car, got into the car and started driving and drove until he came to a bridge where he threw the blanket with its contents under the bridge and set fire to the blanket; that he set the fire with a railroad fusee. That after the fire was going he started home in his automobile and arrived there about 9:30 on the morning of April 11, 1946. That later in the day he drove to Kentucky. The confession states that he cut off the deceased's hands and foot because he knew the deceased had a criminal record and could be identified by his finger-prints; that the deceased had scars on the foot he removed by which he could also be identified. The confession also states that he threw the knife with which the deceased had attempted to cut him into White River near the New York Street bridge, Indianapolis.
In the second confession, which was offered in evidence, substantially the same facts were related but in more detail as to the deceased attacking him with the knife.
The evidence also discloses that the defendant, on April 11, 1946, left the State of Indiana and went to Kentucky where he was arrested for this offense on April 21, 1946.
The state's evidence was also to the effect that search of the defendant's automobile after the alleged crime disclosed the shells of three railroad fusees on the ledge of the back seat.
The state's evidence further disclosed the deceased was small, weighed less than one hundred pounds, that he suffered from arthritis, that his body was crippled, his hands were twisted and in the shape of claws, that he had difficulty holding things in his hands and in getting food to his mouth, and that he had trouble walking and in getting up from his chair.
It is true that if that part of a statement of an accused which is in his favor is not disproved by other evidence, such favorable portion is deserving of as much consideration as the parts which make against the accused. See Buffkin v. State, 1914, 182 Ind. 204, 106 N.E. 362; Forrester v. State of Texas,...
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