State v. Halleck

• Decision Date: 02 February 1886
• Citation: State v. Halleck, 65 Wis. 147, 26 N.W. 572 (Wis. 1886)
• Parties: STATE v. HALLECK.
• Court: Wisconsin Supreme Court

65 Wis. 147

26 N.W. 572

STATE

v.HALLECK.

Supreme Court of Wisconsin.

Filed February 2, 1886.

Error to circuit court, Monroe county.

Bleekman & Bloomingdale, for plaintiff in error.

H. W. Chynoweth, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

ORTON, J.

The crime charged in the information was that of arson, for setting fire to and burning the buildings of one A. Rehberg, in the nighttime of November 30, 1883. The buildings burned consisted of a granary, and near it an old log–house, situated about 30 rods from the house in which Rehberg and his family resided. The defendant was found guilty of the offense on substantially the following evidence: On the night of the fire, before 9 o'clock, Rehberg went out to his barn near the house, and looked about the place, and saw no fire about any of the buildings. He then went into his house, and a little after 9 o'clock went to bed and asleep, and about half past 10 o'clock his wife awakened him by an alarm of fire. He then went out and found said buildings on fire, and when he arrived there they were nearly burned up. His house–dog lay in his usual place beside the kitchen when he went to bed, and when he went to the burning buildings his dog went with him and returned with him to the house, and there appeared to be something the matter with him, and he soon came and jumped up to the door, and then went away and died in about an hour. On post mortem examination two pieces of meat, a piece of twine, and some paper, were found in the stomach of the dog, and an amount of strychnine with them sufficient to cause his death. Near by in the yard a piece of meat, done up in similar paper, and with similar twine, and poisoned with strychnine, was found. The defendant lived in Sparta, several miles from Rehberg's place. He admitted that on the night of the fire he stayed in the barn of one George Reeve, about two miles from the place of the fire, having come from Sparta the day before. The morning after the fire, about 5 o'clock, the defendant was in the road near the place of one Thompson, about half a mile from Reeve's barn. when it was quite dark. He had a lantern in his hand, and he came back to Thompson's house. Near where he was stopped and at the side of the road there was a sack, and in it was a rooster without any head on it, which he had taken from Reeve's barn. He was arrested about 11 o'clock for larceny of the chicken and searched. On his person were found two pieces of meat poisoned by strychnine, done up in a paper and tied with twine, similar to those found in the stomach of the dog and around the meat found in the yard near the house of Rehberg, a small saw, a chilled knife, some matches, and a piece of candle. The defendant formerly lived in the neighborhood, and he and Rehberg were acquainted with each other, but there was no proof of any ill–will or bad feeling towards each other.

1. All the testimony about the dog and poison, and the stealing of the chicken, was objected to because it tended to prove crimes not charged in the information, and because irrelevant. If the only object was to prove that the defendant committed these crimes, the evidence would have been improper, except in order to show a motive for the commission of the crime charged. In cases depending wholly on circumstantial evidence, some motive or the malice of the defendant towards the party injured may be shown as bearing upon the question whether the defendant committed the crime charged, as an important and pertinent fact or circumstance. In this view, it was proper to show that the defendant poisoned the watch–dog of the person injured, which might imply malice towards him and furnish a motive for the arson. Or the dog might have been killed to prevent an alarm before the consummation of the crime, or detection afterwards. The killing of the dog by poisoned meat, and proof that similar...