State v. Delaney
| Decision Date | 12 December 1894 |
| Citation | 61 N.W. 189,92 Iowa 467 |
| Parties | STATE OF IOWA v. D. B. DELANEY AND W. W. SCOTT, Appellants |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
Appeal from Monona District Court.--HON. SCOTT M. LADD, Judge.
DEFENDANTS were indicted, convicted, and sentenced for the crime of setting fire to combustible matter in a building with intent to burn said building. They appeal.
Reversed.
Argo McDuffie & Argo for appellants.
John Y Stone, attorney general, and Thos. A. Cheshire for the state.
I.
Defendants were jointly indicted for the crime of setting fire to certain combustible material in a frame store building belonging to one Anna Lockwood, in Mapleton, Iowa with intent to burn said building. It appears that the defendant Delaney had charge of the business of running a secondhand store in the building which it is claimed defendants set fire to. Delaney's daughter was the owner of the stock of goods. Delaney had formerly made his home in the store building, but for some time prior to the fire he had made his home at defendant Scott's. Scott was a mason, and resided in the rear part of a building belonging to one Cooper, Cooper using the front room as an office. About 6 o'clock on the morning of December 28, 1892, an alarm of fire was sounded and it was discovered that some material in the south end of the Lockwood building was on fire, the fire being in a shed addition to the building. The fire was extinguished, and defendants were arrested and charged with the crime. They pleaded not guilty, but were convicted. It is claimed that the court erred in sustaining objections made by the county attorney to questions propounded to one Coe, a witness for the state. It appears that some of these questions had already been answered; others were not in the proper line of cross-examination; others were clearly immaterial; and that, as to other questions, the error, if any, was cured by the subsequent examination of the witness as to the same matters. We do not think the court erred in its rulings in this respect.
II. Defendants sought to show that, in the room where the fire was discovered, Delaney kept a gasoline stove, which leaked gasoline; that the same ran on the floor, and had once caught fire. They were not permitted to show the fact that the gasoline had caught fire, and this is assigned as error. The entire evidence as to defendants' guilt was circumstantial, and we think they should have been permitted to have the benefit of the proposed evidence. They were entitled to the benefit of any legitimate testimony which might throw any light upon the cause of the fire. If it was true that a fire had once caught from this cause, it was proper to show that fact, as tending to account for the fire which the defendants were charged with setting.
III. It is urged that there was error in refusing to permit the witness Scott to testify as to what rooms he would have to go through in order to get from the room in which he slept on the night of the fire, to the street or alley in the rear of his residence. It appears that there was no exit from Scott's residence to the street in front of it, as the front room was used and occupied as an office by another party. We think the evidence should have been admitted. The purpose of the inquiry, in the light of other testimony seems manifest--to show that defendants could not have got up in the night, and passed out of the...
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