State v. Lynch
| Decision Date | 13 March 1923 |
| Docket Number | 35147 |
| Citation | 192 N.W. 423,195 Iowa 560 |
| Parties | STATE OF IOWA, Appellee, v. JAMES LYNCH, Appellant |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
Appeal from Story District Court.--R. M. WRIGHT, Judge.
APPELLANT was convicted of the crime of burglary, and sentenced to a term in the penitentiary, and appeals.
Affirmed.
Charles H. Hall and Fred E. Hansen, for appellant.
Ben J Gibson, Attorney-general, John Fletcher, Assistant Attorney-general, and Arthur Buck, County Attorney, for appellee.
I.
The corpus delicti of the offense was not in dispute. On the night of February 6th or the morning of the 7th of February, 1920, the First National Bank of Cambridge, Iowa, was broken into and entered, and the safety deposit vault, containing the safe and boxes in which were kept bonds and valuable papers, was broken into by the use of an oxyacetylene torch, operated by the use of oxygen and acetylene gas and tools. The lock boxes in the vault were opened, and the contents taken therefrom, consisting of bonds and promissory notes and cash.
The State introduced testimony tending to show that, about 15 minutes before 4 o' clock on the morning of February 7th, a man rapped at the door of the residence of V. L. Meacham, a farmer living about 7 miles south and 1 miles west of Cambridge, and about 14 miles north and 2 miles west of Des Moines, on the main-traveled road between Cambridge and Des Moines; that, when Meacham opened the door, the parties appearing informed him that they were struck in a ditch, and asked if they could get help to get out; that Meacham consented to assist them, dressed himself, and secured a lantern, and, going out of the house, discovered the car in a ditch about 20 feet west of the driveway into his residence property; that, securing a team and a chain, he hitched to the bar on the back end of the car and pulled it out of the ditch; that Meacham noticed that there were five men in the party, and that one of them wore a leather coat and cap; that, between 8 and 9 o' clock of the same morning, five men drove up to the farm of H. A. Witty, 4 1/2 miles southwest of Murray, in Clarke County, Iowa; that these men were Hank Hankins, who wore a leather coat, Fred Martin, Bill Davis, James Lynch, and somebody called "Joe;" that these five persons were riding in a Packard automobile; that, at the time of their arrival at the house of Witty, he was engaged in doing his chores, feeding cattle, etc., and paid little attention to their arrival, until he discovered them in his house; that Witty at this time was unmarried, but had as his housekeeper the divorced wife of his brother, and this housekeeper was a cousin of Hank Hankins'; that, when Witty entered the house, after doing his chores, the five men above named, including the defendant, were sitting, about in a room about 14 by 16 feet; that he saw in an open grip some government bonds, money, etc., which Hank Hankins then and there told Witty they had just secured the night before by robbing a bank at Cambridge; that this statement was made in the presence and hearing of defendant, James Lynch; that, later in the day, Hankins and Martin drove the other three men to Afton Junction, where they boarded a Great Western train for Minneapolis, Martin and Hankins later returning to the home of Witty; that later, Meacham, who had pulled the automobile out of the ditch, hearing of the bank robbery at Cambridge, went to Des Moines and told James McDonald, a detective, about pulling a Packard car out of a snowdrift near his farm; that McDonald had recently turned over to a man by the name of Ball, owner thereof, a Packard car which he had found abandoned in Des Moines, which care had been recently stolen from Ball in Des Moines, and McDonald sent two detectives with Meacham to find Ball and inspect the car which had been turned over to Ball; that Meacham identified the car as to the one that he had pulled out of the ditch near his place on the morning of February 7th; that, at the time Hankins and the defendant and others visited the home of Witty, on the morning of February 7th, they had with them in the car two Presto tanks, one for containing oxygen, and the other for acetylene gas, and they also had the hose used for conveying the gas to the torch, and also had the torch, which is used for melting steel, iron, and other hard substances; that, on March 18, 1920, S. G. Garnard, then sheriff of Grundy County, Missouri, arrested James Lynch in Grundy County, Missouri; that Lynch, at the time of the arrest, had in his possession two tanks, rubber hose, and torch; that Garnard on the trial identified the tanks, rubber hose, and torch as the tanks, rubber hose, and torch found by him in the possession of Lynch at the time of his arrest.
Witty testified, on the trial, that the tanks, hose, and torch found by Garnard in the possession of Lynch were the same tanks, hose, and torch that he had seen in the possession of Hankins, Lynch, and others at his farm on the morning of February 7th, immediately following the bank robbery at Cambridge.
Defendant offered no testimony.
The jury returned a verdict of guilty, as charged, and appellant was sentenced to a term of not to exceed 40 years in the penitentiary at Fort Madison, from which judgment this appeal is prosecuted.
Errors relied upon for reversal are assigned, attacking rulings of the court on admission of testimony and motions and instructions, which will be considered.
II. H A. Early, president of the bank which was robbed, called by the State, testified only as to the situation he found at the bank on the morning of February 7th. On cross-examination, counsel for appellant...
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