Sefton v. State

• Court: Nevada Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: BADT; MERRILL, C. J., and EATHER
• Citation: Sefton v. State, 72 Nev. 106, 295 P.2d 385 (Nev. 1956)
• Decision Date: 04 April 1956
• Docket Number: No. 3863,3863
• Parties: Walter Horace SEFTON, Appellant, v. The STATE of Nevada, Respondent.

Page 385

295 P.2d 385

72 Nev. 106

Walter Horace SEFTON, Appellant, v. The STATE of Nevada, Respondent.

No. 3863.

Supreme Court of Nevada.

April 4, 1956.

Rehearing Denied May 24, 1956.

John W. Bonner, Las Vegas, for appellant.

Harvey Dickerson, Atty. Gen., George M. Dickerson, Dist. Atty., Clark County, Gordon L. Hawkins, Robert L. Gifford, VeNoy Christofferson, Arthur Olsen, Deputy Dist. Attys., Las Vegas, for respondent.

BADT, Justice.

Appellant was convicted of the first degree murder of Jacqueline Kelly in Clark County, Nevada, and sentence of death imposed. His appeal from the judgment and from the order denying his motion for new trial assigns the errors hereinafter discussed in the order of the seriousness and importance accorded them by the appellant in his opening and closing briefs and in his oral argument.

(1) Appellant's most seriously presented assignment of error revolves about the contention that, aliunde his extrajudicial written confession, there is no proof of the corpus delicti; that there is no corroboration of his confession; that accordingly, in the first instance, the state's case falls by reason of failure to prove the corpus delicti; that by reason of the failure to prove the corpus delicti, there was no foundation for the admission of evidence of the written confession.

On Christmas day, December 25, 1953, four men, who had gone to a desert area on the outskirts of Las Vegas, an area sometimes referred to as 'the jungle', for the purpose of rifle practice, found the dead body of Jacqueline Kelly. One of the men remained with the body but was careful not to disturb it or the area around it. The other three drove back into the city to report their discovery and the sheriff's office sent three deputies to the scene. Sundry photographs were taken and a plaster cast made of a boot print in the sand a few feet from the body. Various garments of the deceased were found close to the body--her left boot (her right boot was on her foot), a square scarf, slacks or jeans, a dark green blouse, a brassiere, etc. The body was identified as that of Jacqueline Kelly and was removed to the mortuary where an autopsy was performed, disclosing, in addition to four lacerations on the head, four prominent lacerations in the neck and body, besides contusions about the right forearm, both hands and both thighs. It was the doctor's opinion that the wounds were caused by a fairly sharp instrument such as a pocket knife. The skull fracture and resulting hemorrhage, two stab wounds in the chest and two additional wounds were, in the doctor's opinion, the three primary causes of death. Evidence of the matters above recited was received before the state offered defendant's written confession. Thus the fact of death and that it resulted not from natural causes, accident or suicide but from the criminal agency of another person had been clearly proved beyond a reasonable doubt. The corpus delicti had thus been established. State v. Fouquette, 67 Nev. 505, 532, 221 P.2d 404. We reject the contention of appellant made in reliance on State v. Teeter, 65 Nev. 584, 200 P.2d 657, that proof of the corpus delicti must include not only the element of the death of the deceased and that it was by a criminal agency, but a third element, namely, the identification of the defendant as the criminal agency. Nor need the proof of the corpus delicti "be as full and conclusive as would be essential if there was no confession to corroborate it. Evidence of facts and circumstances attending the particular offense * * * or of facts to the discovery of which the confession has led, and which would not probably have existed if the offense had not been committed, or of facts having a just tendency to lead the mind to the conclusion that the offense has been committed, would be admissible to corroborate the confession. The weight which would be accorded them, when connected with the confession, the jury must determine, under proper instructions from the court." Norcross, J., In re Kelly, 28 Nev. 491, 83 P. 223, 225, quoting Matthews v. State, 55 Ala. 187. It is stated in 22 C.J.S., Criminal Law, § 839, p. 1472: '* * * [I]t is the general rule * * * that an extrajudicial confession does not warrant a conviction unless it is corroborated by independent evidence of the corpus delicti. * * * [A] conviction based on a confession will stand, although it is uncorroborated otherwise than by proof of the corpus delicti.' Footnote 41 to this text cites many authorities in support of this rule and, where corroborating evidence has been adduced the rule is further stated (id. footnote 41), (1): 'The corroborating evidence need not be such as to connect accused with the crime.' Hundreds of cases in support of this rule are cited in the note, as well as in the additional footnotes appearing in the pocket part, and such rule would seem to be of well nigh universal application. Not only was the corpus delicti proved aliunde the confession, but the same received ample corroboration in the defendant's leading the officers to the scene of the crime, the correspondence of the wounds in the body with those described in the confession, the correspondence of the kind and color of the victim's clothing, the condition of the victim's brassiere as cut by the upthrust of defendant's knife as described by him, the defendant's possession of his foster father's knife corresponding in description with the murder weapon described in his confession, and the correspondence of the plaster cost of the footprint near the body with the defendant's boot. These were all matters of corroboration whose weight was for the determination of the jury. It was likewise the jury's province to reject the defendant's testimony of his visit to the scene of the crime, with another girl, at which time he saw the victim's body lying on the ground, which he would have had the jury believe accounted for his trip to the scene, his knowledge of the route, his knowledge of the nature of the wounds and the nature and color of the victim's clothing, and accounted likewise for his footprint near the body. The jury was likewise authorized to reject his story that he failed to report his alleged discovery to the police for fear of being himself accused of the crime.

We come then to the actions of the defendant, his prolonged drinking debauches with his friend Charles Mobley, his statement to Mobley that he had killed a girl, had left no clues, but that the 'heat was on him' and he wanted to get out of town, his departure from Las Vegas about January 22, 1954, with Mobley, his subsequent arrest in Flint, Michigan, on a burglary charge, his plea of guilty thereto and his volunteered statements to the Michigan officers that he had killed Jacqueline Kelly in Las Vegas, the corroboration by telephone of the fact that Jacqueline Kelly's death still remained unsolved there, followed by the voluntary written confession made by appellant to the Michigan officers. The written confession was by way of questions and answers, all of which were recorded on a tape, transcribed, read by the witness, corrected by him in a minor respect and signed and sworn to by him. Prior to the time he stated to the Michigan officers that he had killed Jacqueline Kelly, they had no knowledge of the matter whatsoever. The inital part of the question and answer document was a statement by the Michigan officer to appellant as follows: 'During our conversation you have admitted to us that you were involved in a murder in the City of Las Vegas in the State of Nevada. I want to inform you that we would like a statement regarding this matter. You do not have to give us a statement if you do not desire to do so. If you should give us a statement, everything you tell us must be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, to the best of your knowledge and recollection. The statement must be given freely and voluntarily without any force, threats or promises having been made on our part. Such a statement may be used either for or against you as the case might be, should this matter come to trial in criminal court. Knowing these things, will you give us a statement? A. Yes.' Appellant then proceeded in question and answer form, as noted, to recite the following facts, in which recital we have eliminated many incidental and unessential statements and which we have condensed for purposes of brevity. On December 18, 1953, appellant drove to a liquor store in Las Vegas to buy some wine. He met Jacqueline Kelly and the two drove to a desert area about a mile north of Vegas Heights, a suburb of Las Vegas. They drank the wine and engaged in acts of sexual intercourse, returned and purchased more wine and again drove back to the desert area and drank it. On a third trip to town appellant sold his auto jack for $2 to a secondhand dealer, purchased more wine and the two returned to the desert area. There, while seated in the car, an argument started. Jacqueline said she was going back to town and say that appellant had raped her. He struck her on the left side of the jaw and mouth with his right hand, got out of the car, went around to the other side, opened her door and jerked her out, struck her and knocked her down, got a knife out of the glove compartment, stabbed her in the throat and several other places. There was some wine left in the bottle, which he drank, then turned the car around as Jacqueline was getting to her knees and drove past her and back to town. She was then bleeding severely from the throat. Appellant gave further descriptive information. The victim had on a green blouse and a pair of cowboy boots and a pair of Levis. On the way back he threw the knife out of the window. It had a green plastic handle. He also threw the wine bottle away. He wiped the blood from his hands and the knife blade with his handkerchief, which he also threw away. He then drove up to the house where his foster parents lived and...