State v. Corliss

• Decision Date: 25 July 1967
• Docket Number: No. 11099,11099
• Citation: 150 Mont. 40,430 P.2d 632
• Parties: The STATE of Montana, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Charles Edward CORLISS, a/k/a Charles Edward Hayes, Defendant and Appellant.
• Court: Montana Supreme Court

Page 632

430 P.2d 632

150 Mont. 40

The STATE of Montana, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Charles Edward CORLISS, a/k/a Charles Edward Hayes Defendant and Appellant.

No. 11099.

Supreme Court of Montana.

July 25, 1967.

Rehearing Denied Aug. 14, 1967.

Lloyd J. Skedd, Helena, for appellant.

Forrest H. Anderson, Atty. Gen., Thomas J. Hanrahan, County Atty., Donald A. Garrity, Asst. Atty. Gen., Helena, for respondent.

PER CURIAM.

This is an appeal by defendant in a criminal action from a judgment entered on a jury verdict of guilty of the crimes of murder in the first degree and kidnapping with the intent to secretly confine. The jury left the punishment to be fixed by the district court. The district court imposed a sentence of life imprisonment for the crime of murder in the first degree and a sentence of ten years for the crime of kidnapping with the intent to secretly confine. Both sentences are to run consecutively.

Defendant-appellant is Charles Edward Corliss, also known as Charles Ewdward Hayes, and will be referred to as defendant.

Defendant's brief sets forth thirty-two specifications of error. From these specifications of error, eleven issues are presented to this court for review.

Before considering the issues presented for review which are relevant, we will make a brief statement of the facts in this case. Additional facts that are important for a complete understanding of the various issues discussed will be added during the course of the opinion.

On September 14, 1965, Donald Hammer, the owner and operator of a post yard in Lincoln, Montana, was kidnapped, robbed, and murdered. The exact details concerning Mr. Hammer's tragic death will never be known for this senseless murder was perpetrated by two individuals both of whom have sought to place the blame on the other. But from either man's story the following events can be gleaned.

David Clinton Walters, a youth of 18 years, and defendant, who was 25 years of age, drove in a borrowed Oldsmobile car, to the office of Donald Hammer at his post yard in Lincoln. They asked him about the post sizes that he bought and the prices he would pay for these posts. Mr. Hammer invited them into his office to give them the desired information. Once inside, they drew a gun on Mr. Hammer and asked him to write out a check. When he could not do this since his checkbook was not in the office, they ordered him out of his office and into the back seat of the car. They then drove him toward Great Falls and robbed him of the money in his wallet. They stopped at a point about 15 miles east of Lincoln. One or both of them marched Mr. Hammer into the trees alongside the highway, and Donald Hammer was then shot in the back of the head and left to die.

Defendant's first issue presented for review is: 'Whether or not a person may be held to answer for a capital crime without presentment or indictment by a grand jury?'

On September 28, 1965, County Attorney Thomas J. Hanrahan of Lewis and Clark County filed a motion for leave to file information direct in the district court against defendant and David Walters, leave to file was granted, and the information charging defendant and Walters with murder and with kidnapping with intent to secretly confine was filed.

Defendant moved to quash this information, but the motion was denied. Defendant was actually tried under an amended information filed January 19, 1966, and also filed direct in the district court. The amended information charged only defendant with the crimes as Walters had previously pled guilty to both crimes. However, in his brief, defendant appears to take issue generally with the practice of obtaining leave to file the information direct in the district court.

It is rather surprising that there would be an objection to the information procedure of charging a crime at this late date. Charges made by informations filed after a hearing before a magistrate, or by leave of the district court, have long been sanctioned by statute and by the Montana Constitution, Art. III, § 8; Sections 94-4904, 94-6201, R.C.M.1947. State ex rel. Juhl v. District Court, 107 Mont. 309, 84 P.2d 979, 120 A.L.R. 353, analyzed several decisions of this court approving the information procedure and set forth rules which guide the discretion of the court to either grant or deny lease to file an information.

The Supreme Court of the United States first held that a state could proceed against criminal defendants by information rather than indictment in Hurtado v. People of State of California, 110 U.S. 516, 4 S.Ct. 111, 28 L.Ed. 232, decided March 3, 1884, and in Beck v. Washington, 369 U.S. 541, 545, 82 S.Ct. 955, 957, 8 L.Ed.2d 98, decided May 14, 1962, commended on the Hurtado case in this manner:

'Ever since Hurtado v. (People of State of) California, 110 U.S. 516, 4 S.Ct. 292, 28 L.Ed. 232 (1884), this Court has consistently held that there is no federal constitutional impediment to dispensing entirely with the grand jury in state prosecutions.'

Defendant's second issue is: 'Does 'due process of law' require the State to furnish a bill of particulars where the crime charged is not detailed enough to determine the statute allegedly violated?'

Defendant here is asking this court to overrule State v. Bosch, 125 Mont. 566, 242 P.2d 477, and hold the district court in error for failure to grant defendant's request for a bill of particulars. State v. Bosch, supra, held that the existence of a code of criminal procedure is complete and since it contained no provision for a bill of particulars the trial court had no authority to require that one be furnished. Defendant's reason for asking for reversal of the Bosch case is that 'due process' requires that he be charged in a manner that will enable him to prepare a defense. The reason advanced cannot be accepted because it relates to the sufficiency of the information and does not in any way raise the issues discussed in the Bosch case. We shall discuss hereafter the sufficienty and clarity of the charge.

The next issue to be considered is defendant's third issue: 'Whether or not a statement by the accused, in the absence of counsel, was made at a time the investigation had focused on him such as to render it inadmissible.'

The facts leading up to defendant's statements are these: Mr. Hammer was reported missing to the deputy sheriff in Lincoln on the evening of September 14, 1965. The deputy sheriff in turn reported Mr. Hammer's absence to Sheriff Middlemas in Helena on the morning of September 16, 1965. Sheriff Middlemas during the course of his investigation found out from an employee of the missing Hammer that on September 14th he saw Hammer come to the post yard and go into his office; shortly afterwards he saw on Oldsmobile car leave the yard. While the employee was not absolutely certain of the color of the automobile he thought it was either light gray or light tan. The Sheriff was in the radio room listening to the law enforcement officers' radio network from about eleven a.m. on that morning and around one o'clock he overheard a conversation from Choteau, the Sheriff there stating that a young fellow in a gray Oldsmobile had been arrested at Choteau the morning before, September 15th, and the young man and automobile had been returned to Conrad. Middlemas immediately called the Sheriff at Conrad and asked him to casually question this young man and see if he would place himself in the vicinity of Lincoln on Monday, September 14th, or Tuesday, September 15th. The Conrad Sheriff did so and called Middlemas back and said that the young man placed himself in Lincoln on Monday. Middlemas, pursuing this slim lead, left for Conrad that same afternoon, and as he explained at the trial, he was primarily looking for a missing man, Hammer, and he did not know whether he was dead or alive but hoped he was alive. On that evening at Conrad, Walters told Sheriff Middlemas his version of the crimes, implicating the defendant, gave a written statement and agreed to try to point out the spot where Mr. Hammer had been led into the forest, and according to his version had been tied to a tree. Mr. Hammer's body was discovered on September 18, 1965, when Walters was taken to the scene a second time. The search had been hampered by new fallen snow in the rugged terrain of the Continental Divide in the Stemple Pass area.

Walter's version of the crimes was released to the press, and the press was kept informed of the search activities. Defendant was aware of these activities from his jail cell as he had access to a radio and newspapers. Deputy Sheriff Laurence L. Lytle first interviewed defendant on September 21, 1965, and fully advised him of his rights. In this interview defendant kept telling Deputy Sheriff Lytle that no one wanted to listen to his side of the events.

On September 25, 1965, defendant gave a statement to County Attorney Hanrahan and Sheriff Middlemas in which he set forth his version of the crimes. The statement was transcribed by W. J. May, the court reporter in Conrad. Defendant was warned of his various constitutional rights once again as he had been each time any law enforcement officer talked with him in connection with Donald Hammer's disappearance and subsequently discovered murder. Immediately following this statement, defendant and Walters at the request of each of them, gave a joint statement in each other's presence.

Before taking the written statement from defendant, County Attorney Hanrahan gave the following warning: 'Chuck, this is Dave Middlemas, the Sheriff of Lewis and Clark County, and I am Tom Hanrahan, the County Attorney of Lewis and Clark County, and this is Mr. May, an official court reporter. I have previously advised you, but I want to advise you again that you don't have to make any statement to us, that any statement you may make can be used against you, that you can have the services of an attorney at any time you want. I am not going to...