State v. Landaker

• Decision Date: 29 March 1926
• Docket Number: 19628.
• Citation: 244 P. 555,138 Wash. 267
• Parties: STATE v. LANDAKER.
• Court: Washington Supreme Court

244 P. 555

138 Wash. 267

STATE v. LANDAKER.

No. 19628.

Supreme Court of Washington

March 29, 1926

Department 2.

Appeal from Superior Court, King County; Smith, Judge.

Harry Landaker was convicted of murder in the first degree, and he appeals. Affirmed.

Henry Clay Agnew, of Seattle, for appellant.

Ewing D. Colvin and R. M. Burgunder, both of Seattle, for the State.

TOLMAN C.J.

Appellant was charged with four others with the crime of murder in the first degree while engaged in and in withdrawing from the scene of a robbery. The information charges that the actual killing was done by a certain two of the defendants therein named, and that the appellant and two others, while willfully and feloniously engaged with all and each of the persons so charged, did, though not actually present at the shooting willfully and feloniously aid and abet the actual killers in causing the death of the murdered man. From a verdict of guilty and a judgment thereon, fixing the penalty at life imprisonment, appellant brings the cause here for review.

In order to understand the particular points here presented and relied upon, it will be necessary to give a brief and very general outline of the state's case and the theory upon which it sought a conviction. It was shown by the state that on May 31, 1924 at 4 o'clock in the morning, two automobiles left the apartment house in the city of Seattle in which the appellant resided and went in a southerly direction to a point six miles beyond the city of Renton to a ranch occupied by the decedent, Louis Barei. These cars carried the appellant, one Frank Stevens (alias Montrose), who resided in the same apartment house with the appellant, and Oscar L. Redden and Joseph Burt, two police officers of the city of Seattle. Arriving near the Barei ranch, the automobiles were stopped under the screen of certain standing trees so they could not be readily observed from the ranch, and there they waited for several hours, it being the theory of the state that they were waiting for a truckload of liquor to leave the ranch, with the intention of stealing the liquor. No load of liquor appearing, this attempt was apparently abortive. On the following Monday, at the same hour, the same automobiles, occupied by the same men, together with another defendant, Chester Rothermell, again left Seattle for the Barei ranch, waited in the same place for several hours watched the occupants of the ranch endeavoring to extricate a cow which was mired, and finally Redden, Montrose, and Burt took one of the cars, drove around to the rear of the place and, leaving the car, walked through the timber and brush to the rear of the ranch buildings, where they discovered a quantity of liquor. Burt returned to the point where appellant and Rothermell had remained on watch, told them of the discovery of the liquor, and took them to the place where it had been found. All were engaged in removing the liquor when they observed three of the Italians, occupants of the ranch, coming toward them. Believing that they had been discovered, appellant and three of his companions ran toward the Italians, each drawing a revolver, and held them up. Thereafter the Italians were conducted to a place where they would be concealed from the view of people passing on the road. Montrose is said to have entered the house and to have robbed another Italian found there and compelled him to join those already being held captive. One of the Italians thus treated testified that he recognized appellant and Montrose as being two members of a gang that several days previously had held up the men on a ranch near Kent and stolen some 80 gallons of liquor. At about this stage of the proceedings the defendant Burt was sent back to Seattle to get a search warrant, and appellant, with the others, proceeded to load captured liquor into appellant's automobile. Appellant and Rothermell took the load of liquor to a point some three miles distant from the ranch, along a little-used road, and hid the liquor in two different places. They then returned to the ranch, presumably for another load of liquor, and then learned that Louis Barei had been shot, and that Montrose had fled. The evidence tended to show that, while the appellant and his companion were thus engaged in carrying off and hiding the liquor, Redden and Montrose got into some sort of an altercation with the Italians whom they were holding, and both Montrose and Redden shot at Louis Barei, and from the result of these shots he shortly afterwards died. When appellant and Rothermell returned from hiding the first load of liquor, they found no one about the place, but shortly afterwards Redden came from the woods, where apparently he had been hiding, and joined appellant and Rothermell. Appellant went to the place where the shooting had occurred and found a bullet, but, seeing no blood, concluded that no one had been seriously hurt, and they waited about the place for Burt to return with the federal officers. In the meantime Burt pursued a leisurely course to Seattle, inquired for a federal officer, whom he apparently knew; not finding him, left word with his wife appointing a time and place to meet him; went to the United States marshal's office, inquired for a certain deputy; and, he being out, Burt repaired to the place appointed for the meeting with the federal prohibition officer; and, he not appearing, Burt thereafter, giving an assumed name, appeared before another federal officer, swore out a search warrant, and with him and another started back for the Barei ranch. The sheriff's office having been notified of the shooting, appellant and his companions were arrested at the ranch, and as the party was returning toward Seattle they met Burt with the two federal officers, and Burt was also arrested. The prisoners were taken to the sheriff's office and questioned, each telling a different story, and none of them mentioning the carrying away and hiding of the liquor which had been removed. It was the theory of the state that the persons charged with this crime were intending to steal and carry away all of the liquor on the Barei ranch and then report the discovery of a still and...