State v. Leonard

• Decision Date: 03 July 1907
• Citation: 112 N.W. 784,135 Iowa 371
• Parties: STATE OF IOWA v. GEORGE LEONARD, Appellant
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

112 N.W. 784

135 Iowa 371

STATE OF IOWA v. GEORGE LEONARD, Appellant

Supreme Court of Iowa, Des Moines

July 3, 1907

Appeal from Marshall District Court.--HON. J. M. PARKER, Judge.

THE defendant was convicted of the crime of burglary, and appeals.

Affirmed.

Boardman & Lawrence, for appellant.

H. W Byers, Attorney-General, and C. W. Lyon, Assistant Attorney-General, for the State.

OPINION

LADD, J.

The Marshall Vinegar & Pickle Works was entered where not likely to be noticed, and its safe blown open, at about eleven o'clock p. m. of April 17th or 18th, 1906. The explosion was heard by F. M. Haas, a policeman, who reached the scene in time to see six or seven men running away from the building. Notwithstanding his command to halt, they kept on running, and he opened fire on them with his revolver. They fled down the middle of the street around a railroad freight house with the policeman after them. After shooting five times, his ammunition became exhausted, when he dropped into a restaurant and notified the desk sergeant of the police force, got a box of shells at the police station, and then secured a switch engine, on which he went out on the track some distance. Upon his return, he alighted at the pottery plant, and then walked in. As he crossed the Linn Creek Bridge, he heard some one on the tracks of the Iowa Central Railroad Company, and, going over there, saw six or seven men walking along the track together. This was five or six blocks from the scene of the crime. They were assisting one of their number, who had been wounded; the defendant participating therein. The policeman commanded them to hold up their hands, when one of them remarked that he was shot. He then started them up the track, where he met two officers, when one of the men escaped in the weeds. The witness positively identified the defendant and one Rogers as among those arrested. The later had a fresh wound in the side. Lawson, who escaped in the weeds, when retaken about an hour later, had a coat on with a bullet hole at a point corresponding with the wound in Roger's side. He was found lying along the track about fifty feet from where all were apprehended with a bunch of dynamite, caps, and fuse by his side and a bottle of nitroglycerin in his pocket. A search light, two revolvers, and a bunch of skeleton keys were found near by. Another man dodged between freight cars and escaped, but was recaptured about four hours later, and had $ 7 or $ 8 in his outside coat pocket, as well as some in the pocket of his trousers. The prisoners were committed to the county jail, where all remained until May 7th, when all escaped through the window, the bars of which were sawed. The defendant and two others were recaptured at Mitchell, S. D.

Appellant contends that the evidence, as thus recited, was insufficient to sustain a conviction. We think otherwise. From this evidence it was reasonably to be inferred that the group of men who ran from the scene of the crime at a late hour of night had participated therein; that Rogers was wounded by a bullet fired by Haas at that time; that these men had continued together because of Rogers' need of assistance, and all this was confirmed by finding material necessary for the commission of such an offense either on or near by Lawson, who escaped temporarily from the officer. The fact that the one having possession of the implements of crime, together with the coat with a hole in it, and another with its fruits attempted to escape, is strong evidence of preparation for and perpetration of crime and cannot be permitted to shield those who remained, as was evidently intended. The jury might well have found from the circumstances established that these men were engaged in a common enterprise, and that all were equally guilty, regardless of who may have placed the dynamite or lighted the fuse.

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