State v. Roedl

• Decision Date: 25 January 1945
• Docket Number: 6711
• Citation: 107 Utah 538,155 P.2d 741
• Court: Utah Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE v. ROEDL

155 P.2d 741

107 Utah 538

STATE v. ROEDL

No. 6711

Supreme Court of Utah

January 25, 1945

Appeal from District Court, Fourth District, Utah County; Abe W Turner, Judge.

James Joseph Roedl was convicted of murder in the first degree, and he appeals.

Affirmed.

Ray E. Dillman, of Roosevelt, for appellant.

Grover A. Giles, Atty. Gen., Herbert F. Smart and W. Stanford Wagstaff, Asst. Attys. Gen and Wm. Stanley Dunford, Dist. Atty., of Provo, for respondent.

Van Cott, District Judge. Larson, C.J., and McDonough, Wade, and Wolfe, JJ., concur. Turner, J., being disqualified, did not participate herein.

OPINION

Van Cott, District Judge.

The appellant was convicted of murder in the first degree and sentenced to be executed. From the verdict of the jury and the sentence by the court the appellant appeals.

The evidence shows that the appellant, James Joseph Roedl, and one LeRoy Edward Ritchey first became acquainted in the early part of October, 1942, at Scotts Bluff, Nebraska. Traveling west and just outside of Denver, Colorado, they were given a ride by the deceased, Abigale Agnes Williams, who was driving a 1930 Model A Ford sedan. The car was heavily loaded and accompanying the deceased were two dogs. By reason of the loaded condition of the car, it seems to have been necessary, or at least convenient, for Roedl and Ritchey to ride in the front seat of the car. After reaching Vernal they proceeded on U.S. highway No. 40, toward Fort Duchesne.

The appellant gave a written confession which was introduced in evidence and which will be used for a statement of his version of the facts as to what transpired after leaving Vernal.

"It was dark when we left Vernal, Utah, Roy Ritchey was driving. I was sitting in the middle of the front seat with Mrs. Williams sitting on my right. Mrs. Williams had a blanket pulled up around her head to keep warm, and I wrapped myself up with a blanket and slid down in the seat and fell asleep. All of a sudden I woke up by something striking my face and heard Mrs. Williams say, 'Please don't hit me any more.' I turned my face to look at her, and there was blood streaming down her face and she had her left hand up as though to protect herself, and I noticed her hand was also covered with blood. I saw Roy hit her with a hammer again with a short choppy blow, just as Mrs. Williams asked him not to hit her again. During this time, Roy was driving very slow, barely moving along, and he was holding the hammer in his right hand and was hunched up over the wheel. Roy then told me to take the hammer, which I did, and told me to hit her and I told him I wouldn't do it and I dropped the hammer. Roy then shoved something into my left side, which I took to be a gun, and told me to pull the blanket over Mrs. Williams face which I did. Then I felt myself having a convulsive seizure and when I woke up Roy had the car stopped off the pavement and had the right door open and I noticed my right arm was up over the back of the seat in back of Mrs. Williams. Roy reached in and pulled Mrs. Williams out and I noticed he had the hammer in his right hand. Mrs. Williams was groaning and gasping for breath as Roy was pulling her out of the car. She rolled part way down the bank, almost to the bottom of the ditch. Roy then pulled her on down to the bottom of the ditch, and I saw him hit her nine or ten times more."

The confession continues but relates to their traveling through Idaho and into the State of Washington where the appellant was arrested.

Much of the evidence of other witnesses introduced by the state bears out the physical facts as related by the appellant.

That the appellant is subject to epileptic fits is abundantly supported by the evidence of the doctors and the other witnesses that testified in the case. That he had such a fit as claimed by him during the commission of the crime is disputed by the medical testimony and apparently the jury decided that he did not.

On the morning of the 13th of October, 1942, a Mrs. Clark was traveling on foot in an easterly direction from Fort Duchesne towards Vernal when her attention was attracted by the barking of a small white dog on the north side of the highway and down in the barrow pit. Mrs. Clark walked to the edge of the paved portion of the highway and observed an object which resembled the body of a human being. The body was found 772 feet 7 inches west of the Uintah River Bridge in Uintah County, State of Utah.

The appellant was subsequently tried in the Federal District Court, Salt Lake City, Utah, and convicted of murder. Before judgment was pronounced the Federal District Court ruled that the Federal Court did not have jurisdiction over the appellant and thereupon the trial from which the appellant appeals was commenced in the State Court. At the trial in the State Court the appellant entered a plea of once in jeopardy and in support thereof introduced Exhibit B, which is the indictment in the United States District Court, Central Division, No. 14291, and which indictment is against the appellant James Joseph Roedl. It was stipulated that a trial was had on this indictment, evidence was submitted and a verdict rendered. It was also stipulated that appellant in this cause is same as defendant in said Federal Court. The trial court, after hearing this evidence and considering the stipulation, refused to dismiss the charges of the state against the appellant.

To support this appeal and for the purpose of obtaining a reversal of the judgment, appellant has presented twelve assignments of error. We shall consider and discuss each assignment of error seriatim.

Assignment no. 1 is directed to the plea of former jeopardy and former conviction in the Federal Court, and goes to the jurisdiction of the Federal and State Court in this case.

As is shown in appellant's brief, the place on U.S. Highway no. 40, and at the point west of the Uintah River Bridge where the body of Mrs. Williams was found and where this crime was committed, is part of the Uintah Indian Reservation. Appellant takes the position that because such land is part of the Indian Reservation that the United States has jurisdiction over the crime committed thereon, regardless of the race of the individual committing the crime or the race of the one against whom the crime was committed. And if the Federal Court did in fact have jurisdiction that jeopardy attached to this appellant and the State Court should have granted a dismissal on the appellant's plea of former jeopardy.

Counsel in support of his position cites us to Article III, par. 2 of the Constitution of Utah and contends that this paragraph reserves control of Indian lands in Congress. This section of the Constitution of this state has been by us compared with the same section in the Montana Constitution. We find them to be practically identical. The Montana Constitution was considered by the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Draper v. United States, 164 U.S. 240, 17 S.Ct. 107, 109, 41 L.Ed. 419, a case very much similar to the one at bar.

In the Draper case the plaintiff in error was indicted, tried, convicted and sentenced to death in the Federal Court for the crime of murder alleged to have been committed on the Crow Indian Reservation. He moved to arrest the judgment on the ground that the court had no jurisdiction to try an offense committed on the Crow Reservation by other than an Indian, as such crime was exclusively cognizable by the proper court of the State of Montana.

The defendant in error contended that the following language taken from the enabling act of Montana, and which language is identical with the language contained in Article II, Sec. 2, of the Utah Constitution, gave the Federal Court jurisdiction. The words in the foregoing upon which the argument is based are the following:

"And said Indian lands shall remain under the absolute jurisdiction and control of the Congress of the United States."

The court in delivering its opinion said:

"Indeed, if the meaning of the words which reserved jurisdiction and control over Indian lands contended for by the defendant in error were true, then the state of Montana would not only be deprived of authority to punish offenses committed by her own citizens upon Indian reservations, but would also have like want of authority for all offenses committed by her own citizens upon such portions of the public domain, within her borders, as may have been appropriated and patented to an Indian under the terms of the act of 1887. The conclusion to which the contention leads is an efficient demonstration of its fallacy. It follows that a proper appreciation of the legislation as to Indians existing at the time of the passage of the enabling act by which the state of Montana was admitted into the Union adequately explains the use of the words relied upon, and demonstrates that, in reserving to the United States jurisdiction and control over Indian lands, it was not intended to deprive that state of power to punish for crimes committed on a reservation or Indian lands by other than Indians or against Indians, and that a consideration of the whole subject fully answers the argument that the language used in the enabling act becomes meaningless unless it be construed as depriving the state of authority to it belonging in virtue of its existence as an equal member of the Union. * * *

"Our conclusion is that the circuit court of the United States for the District of Montana had no jurisdiction of the indictment, but 'according to the practice heretofore adopted in like cases should deliver up the prisoner to the authorities of the state of Montana to be dealt with according to law.'" Citing and considering United States v. Ewing, D. C 47 E. 809; ...