Sandage v. State
| Decision Date | 23 January 1901 |
| Docket Number | 11,407 |
| Citation | 85 N.W. 35,61 Neb. 240 |
| Parties | FLOYD SANDAGE v. STATE OF NEBRASKA |
| Court | Nebraska Supreme Court |
ERROR from the district court for Fillmore county. Tried below before STUBBS, J. Reversed.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.
F. B Donisthorpe, for plaintiff in error.
Constantine J. Smyth, Attorney General, and Paul Pizey, contra.
The plaintiff in error, defendant below, was informed against and convicted of the crime of burglary. The offense charged was alleged to have been committed by breaking into a chicken-house with intent to steal and stealing a number of chickens therefrom. The evidence on which the verdict is based is wholly circumstantial. The defendant resided at Harvard, Clay county, and was engaged in the business of buying chickens and reselling them to a poultry dealer doing business at Hastings. The offense is alleged to have been committed about seventeen miles from Harvard, in the county of Fillmore. The only direct evidence tending to show the defendant to have been at or near the place where the offense is alleged to have been committed, and in the county, was the testimony of one witness, residing in the neighborhood, who testified that on the day preceding the night of the alleged burglary the defendant called at his residence and made inquiries respecting the purchase of poultry. The testimony of this witness is effectually disproven by other and sufficient evidence showing the defendant to have been at home during the afternoon and evening of the day mentioned. As to the testimony of the witness mentioned, it appears to have been a case of mistaken identity. It is abundantly established by the evidence that the defendant was in possession of the stolen chickens on the day succeeding the night of the burglary. He claims to have purchased them through his wife of one Viret Hawkins and one unknown person. The theory of the state is that the defendant, a brother-in-law named Ed. Clark, and the said Viret Hawkins, who appears to be a nephew of Clark, were all engaged in the burglary and larceny. That the defendant had guilty knowledge of the stolen property being such is, we think, fairly inferable from the record. Whether as a principal, accessory, or as one receiving stolen property knowing it to be such, it is not necessary or proper that we should undertake herein to determine.
On the trial of the case the state relied on the testimony of a witness who is a member of a detective association, and was engaged in procuring evidence to establish the guilt of the parties accused of the crime. The witness testified to his work as a detective, certain facts which were offered as tending to establish the guilt of the defendant, and to reputed conversations had between the detective and the accused relating to the offense with which he was charged. The defendant on the trial, and after the introduction of such testimony, requested an instruction to the jury, to the effect that, in weighing such testimony, greater care should be exercised in relation to the testimony of a detective employed in hunting up evidence, who is interested in or employed to find evidence against the accused, than in other cases; because of the natural and unavoidable...
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