State v. Adams
| Decision Date | 07 July 1911 |
| Docket Number | 17,535 |
| Parties | THE STATE OF KANSAS, Appellee, v. GLEN ADAMS, Appellant |
| Court | Kansas Supreme Court |
Decided July, 1911.
Appeal from Graham district court.
Judgment affirmed.
SYLLABUS BY THE COURT.
1. ADMISSIONS--Voluntary Statements Admissible. Statements made by one charged with murder to a county attorney and county commissioner, giving in detail the facts of the crime, are properly received in evidence when there is no showing that such statements were procured by duress promise of reward, or other improper means.
2. EVIDENCE--Shoe-tracks Admissible. The description and measurement of tracks at the scene of the crime which correspond with the shoes worn by the defendant and introduced in evidence are competent.
3. BLOODHOUNDS--When Conduct of Admissible as Evidence. Before evidence of the conduct of bloodhounds alleged to have been put upon the trail of the defendant can properly be received it should appear that the dogs in question were able, at the time and under the circumstances, to follow the scent or track of a person. When such foundation has been laid and the evidence showing the conduct of the dogs has been received, a charge in substance that before the jury can consider such conduct they must find that the dogs in question were accurate, certain and reliable in following the trail of human footsteps, and if they find from the evidence touching the matter that they were and are reliable and accurate in this regard then the evidence of their work and its result may be considered, together with all the other evidence in the case, as a circumstance determining the guilt of the defendant, is not prejudicially erroneous as to such defendant.
4. BLOODHOUNDS--Weight of Such Evidence for Jury. While the competency of such evidence must be determined by the court before its admission and not left to the jury, still after its admission and after cross-examination or rebuttal it may become so weakened that the jury should disregard it.
5. BLOODHOUNDS--When Conduct of Bloodhounds Should Not be Considered. If a proper foundation for such evidence be subsequently so weakened or destroyed as to render the jury unable to find that the dogs were able to take or follow the trail in question, then the evidence of the conduct of such dogs should not be considered and the quoted instruction was proper.
John L. Crank, and Turck & Pedroja, for the appellant.
John S. Dawson, attorney-general, J. L. Colvin, county attorney, and W. L. Sayers, for the appellee.
The defendant was convicted of the murder of Joseph Anderson, who lived about six miles from where the defendant worked for another farmer named Huntington. The state sought to show that between eight o'clock and midnight of the 8th of November, 1910, the defendant went to the home of Joseph Anderson and shot him, and then returned to his place of abode. The testimony showed that the defendant was at the Huntington house on the evening in question, and the persons remaining there that night, while they heard a sound as of some one moving about early in the evening, did not know of his absence, and he was there the next morning as usual. Tracks similar to those made by the shoes worn by the defendant, which were introduced in evidence, were found upon the premises where the shooting occurred, and from the description and measurements correspond fairly well with the shoes themselves, and the evidence touching this matter was properly received.
On the day of his arrest the defendant was called to the county attorney's office, and was put under oath and through the form of a prohibition inquisition, but the answers given to the questions propounded were not in any wise criminating, and it is not clear why they were introduced in evidence. Neither is it clear why this method was sought to be used to obtain statements from one recently arrested on a charge, as it was at first, of shooting with intent to kill. From some motive or by some influence practically impossible to determine from the evidence, the defendant, on November 12, wrote and handed to the county attorney a letter addressed to one Fred Harvey, as follows:
On the same day certain statements were made to the county attorney to the effect that on the night in question the defendant went north to the corner east of Joseph Anderson's, then west a mile; set the straw pile on fire first, then set the barn on fire, and when Anderson came out with a bucket of water and threw it on the fire, and was leaving, the defendant shot him and went east and north of the house and shot twice from the east end of the porch; that when he shot the first time Anderson exclaimed that he was killed; that he did not leave until Anderson came out and went down the road; that when the defendant left he went south, and did not go back the same way he came up. One of the county commissioners testified that the county attorney sent for him and hold him that the defendant wanted to tell him about the affair, and when asked if he did the deed said, "I did." When asked how he came to do that, he said he had been accused of going into the Prairie View schoolhouse by Sam Anderson, and that he shot Joe because he could get at him better than he could Sam; that Sam had a family; that he set the stack on fire to attract his attention; that he did not come out, and he set the barn on fire and then he did come out, when he shot him; that he went around in front of the house, in east of the porch, where Anderson was lying on his elbow, and shot at him twice; that he had four shells, but one he could not get into the gun; it was jammed; that he would have shot him with that; that he went east and was passed by Anderson within about fifty yards south of the road.
Some contention was made that these statements were improperly procured, but after an investigation of the matter they were allowed to go to the jury, and we think properly so. A gun was found at the Huntington place at the time of the arrest which had the appearance of having been recently shot and of having dust or weeds jammed into the muzzle.
It is strenuously insisted that the evidence of the alleged tracking of the defendant by certain bloodhounds was improperly received and improperly instructed upon. Bloodhound evidence has been viewed differently by different courts. The supreme court of Nebraska, in Brott v. State, 70 Neb. 395, 97 N.W. 593, repudiates such evidence as incompetent and dangerous. Other courts have given various expressions as to the foundation necessary to be laid in order to render such evidence competent. These decisions, with notes, may be found in Parker v. The State, 46 Tex. Crim. 461, 3 A. & E. Ann. Cas. 893, 80 S.W. 1008; Richardson v. The State, 145 Ala. 46, 8 A. & E. Ann. Cas. 108, 41 So. 82; Hargrove v. The State, 147 Ala. 97, 10 A. & E. Ann. Cas. 1126, 41 So. 972.
In State of Ohio v. Thomas Hall, 3 Ohio N.P. 125, 4 Ohio Dec. 147, the subject is treated historically, and the use of bloodhounds for scenting and tracking enemies or fugitives is shown to have been in vogue hundreds of years ago. It was there held that bloodhounds trained to follow human tracks could be shown to have been put upon the scent or track of a person twenty-four hours after a burglary, at the building or at a place where stolen property was concealed, and that they followed such track or scent up to the door of the defendant.
In State v. Dickerson, 77 Ohio St. 34, 82 N.E. 969, the supreme court of Ohio goes at length into the leading cases and the different rules laid down, and deduces the following as the correct one:
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