State v. Cohen

Citation78 N.W. 857,108 Iowa 208
PartiesSTATE v. COHEN.
Decision Date08 April 1899
CourtUnited States State Supreme Court of Iowa

OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE

Appeal from district court, Blackhawk county; A. S. Blair, Judge.

From a judgment convicting him of the crime of arson, the defendant appeals. Reversed.Mullan & Pickett, for appellant.

Milton Remley, Atty. Gen., and S. B. Reed, for the State.

LADD, J.

The evidence was wholly circumstantial. The court, as the eleventh paragraph of the charge, gave this instruction: “The ruling requiring the jury to be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt of the defendant's guilt, in order to warrant a conviction, does not require that the jury should be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt of each link in the chain of evidence relied upon to establish the defendant's guilt. It is sufficient if, taking the testimony all together, the jury are satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty.” What the court doubtless intended to say was that it was not incumbent on the state to prove beyond reasonable doubt every circumstance offered in evidence, and tending to establish facts essential to a conviction. If so intended, it would have been a correct statement of the law. And we may go further, and say that it is not necessary that each essential fact in the chain of circumstances solely relied on to connect the accused with the commission of the offense, when separately considered, be found beyond reasonable doubt. Such a fact, though having little to sustain it when standing alone, may derive such support from others immediately connected therewith as to exclude all doubt of its existence. Nevertheless, if conviction depends entirely on different circumstances, arranged linkwise, connecting the defendant with the crime charged, then each and every one of these must be established beyond a reasonable doubt; for no chain can be stronger than its weakest link. Com. v. Webster, 5 Cush. 295; People v. Phipps, 39 Cal. 333;Crow v. State. 33 Tex. Cr. R. 264, 26 S. W. 209; 2 Thomp. Trials, 2511; Rice, Ev. p. 766; People v. Aikin (Mich.) 33 N. W. 821;Kollock v. State (Wis.) 60 N. W. 817. Not so, however, with the minor circumstances relied on by the state to establish the ultimate and essential facts upon which conviction depends. Some of these may fail of proof, and yet those essential to conviction be found from other evidence beyond reasonable doubt. But the linked arrangement of fact to fact, in cases of circumstantial evidence, is not always discernible. A guilty person is quite as frequently hemmed in by a throng of circumstances. As said in Leonard v. Territory (Wash.) 7 Pac. 878: “Release from a chain comes when the weakest link gives away, but escape from a crowd does not necessarily depend on the presence or absence of one or another, or even, perhaps, the greatest number, of the individuals composing it.” If the jury could only have understood, from the phrase “link in the chain of circumstances,” that such fact or circumstance was referred to as might tend to establish the ultimate facts and circumstances upon which conviction depended, then, though not approving of the use of metaphors in instructions, an exception would not be well founded. But the connection in which it was used does not require that construction, and we deem it the more likely to have been thought by the jury to refer to facts or circumstances essential to conviction, and which, according to all the authorities and sound reasoning, must be established beyond reasonable doubt. This instruction has been repeatedly condemned as erroneous by other courts. State v. Furney (Kan. Sup.) 21 Pac. 216;State v. Gleim (Mont.) 41 Pac. 998;Marion v. State (Neb.) 20 N. W. 294;Graves v. People (Colo. Sup.) 32 Pac. 66; Leonard v. Territory, supra; People v. Aikin, supra; Clair v People (Colo. Sup.) 10 Pac. 799. The reasoning in the last case is so concisely and perspicuously stated, that we quote with approval: “This figure of speech may perhaps be correctly applied to the ultimate and essential facts necessary to conviction in criminal cases, since, if one be omitted, or be not proven beyond reasonable doubt, an acquittal must follow. It is not true, however, that each and every of the minor circumstances introduced to sustain these ultimate facts must be proven with the same degree of certainty. Some of these circumstances may fail of proof altogether, and be discarded from consideration by the jury, yet the ultimate fact to establish which they were presented may be shown beyond a reasonable doubt. The evidence in cases similar to the one before us has been more aptly likened to a cable. One, two, or a half-dozen strands may part, yet the cable still remain so strong that there is scarcely a possibility of its breaking. * * * It is true, in a sense, that every circumstance, however trivial, offered by the state in evidence, is relied upon; but it is true, in a broader sense, that the state relies upon the ultimate facts or circumstances, the establishment of which is absolutely essential to conviction. We deem it quite as reasonable to suppose that the jury misunderstood and misapplied the language used, as that they comprehended its appropriate meaning and application.” The supreme court of Illinois seem to approve the instruction in Bressler v. People, 3 N. E. 522; but, when again before that court in the same case (8 N. E. 62), it was pronounced inaccurate, but held to have done no harm. The charge was larceny of a note from a justice of the peace named Smith. The defendant testified that he paid it, and Smith thereupon delivered it to him, while the latter swore it had never been paid, and was not delivered. Circumstances were then proven tending to support the testimony of each, and this evidence is that to which the instruction must have been applied; that is, as said by the court, “only evidentiary facts tending to corroborate other evidence.” In Bradshaw v. State (Neb.) 22 N. W. 365, the instruction was held, in view of others not set out, not to refer to matters essential to be found in order to convict. Here the error is emphasized by repetition, in substance, though in different language, in the eighteenth paragraph of the charge; and by none is...

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17 cases
  • State v. Taylor, 8098
    • United States
    • United States State Supreme Court of Idaho
    • May 3, 1955
    ...96 P. 466; Abbott v. Territory, 20 Okl. 119, 94 P. 179, 16 L.R.A.,N.S., 260; Childs v. State, 34 Neb. 236, 51 N.W. 837; State v. Cohen, 108 Iowa 208, 78 N.W. 857; Siberry v. State, 133 Ind. 677, 33 N.E. 681; Owens v. United States, 9 Cir., 130 F. 279; State v. Parks, 96 N.J.L. 360, 115 A. 3......
  • Pettine v. Territory of New Mexico
    • United States
    • United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (8th Circuit)
    • October 21, 1912
    ...... he fired to save it; and that he never intended to kill. Berardinelli until forced to shoot to save himself. This was. the state of the evidence when the defendant closed his case. The prosecution had then taken the evidence of four or five. witnesses and the defendant the ... v. State, 132 Ind. 65, 31 N.E. 473, 474, Cowan v. State, 22 Neb. 519, 35 N.W. 405, Carr v. State,. 23 Neb. 749, 37 N.W. 630, State v. Cohen, 108 Iowa,. 208, 78 N.W. 857, 75 Am.St.Rep. 213, and State v. Lee, 113 Iowa, 348, 85 N.W. 619. . . A. reasonable doubt is such a doubt ......
  • State v. Dickens, 7402
    • United States
    • United States State Supreme Court of Idaho
    • March 10, 1948
    ...... Price v. State, 1 Okl.Cr. 358, 98 P. 447, 457. . . The. court committed reversible error in giving instruction No. 7. defining a reasonable doubt as a doubt for which a juror can. give a good reason. Siberry v. State, 133 Ind. 677,. 33 N.E. 681, at page 685; State v. Cohen, 108 Iowa. 208, 78 N.W. 857, at page 858, 75 Am.St.Rep. 213. . . Robert. Allshie, former Atty. Gen., Robert E. Smylie, Atty. Gen., and. Perce Hall, Pros. Atty., of Mountain Home, for respondent. . . If a. juror, regardless of an impression received by hearing or. ......
  • People v. Antommarchi
    • United States
    • New York Court of Appeals
    • October 27, 1992
    ...the burden of presenting a defense that supplies the jurors with the arguments they need to legitimize their votes (see, State v. Cohen, 108 Iowa 208, 78 N.W. 857, 858; Siberry v. State, 133 Ind. 677, 685, 33 N.E. 681). As such, the charge actually reverses the constitutionally required pri......
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