State v. Stain

• Decision Date: 12 March 1890
• Citation: 82 Me. 472,20 A. 72
• Parties: STATE v. STAIN et al.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

20 A. 72

82 Me. 472

STATE

v. STAIN et al.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

March 12, 1890.

(Official.)

On motion for a new trial, from supreme Judicial court, Penobscot county.

O. D. Baker, Atty. Gen., and F. H. Appleton, Co. Atty., for the State.L. A. Barker and P. H. Gillen, for defendants.

FOSTER, J.On the evening of February 22, 1878, John W. Barron, cashier of the Dexter Savings Bank, was found within the vault of the bank, wounded, gagged, handcuffed, unconscious, and in a dying condition.A few hours later death resulted.Ten years from that time the respondents were indicted, tried, and convicted of the murder of this man.Thereupon a general motion to set aside the verdict was filed, and also a motion for a new trial on the ground of newly-discovered evidence.These motions were addressed to and heard by the chief justice of this court, who presided at the trial.The motions having been denied, an appeal was taken to this court and the question before us relates to the correctness of his decision in denying these motions for a new trial.Our determination must be based upon the record which has been presented before us, and which is very voluminous, comprising about 1,200 printed pages of testimony from more than 150 witnesses.Upon the combined evidence thus presented does the guilt or innocence of the respondents depend.With the utmost care and diligent research, in the investigation of this case, have we examined this vast volume of testimony; and the conclusion to which this court, by unanimous opinion, has ultimately arrived, is that the decision of the court below, denying these motions, was correct.

While it is practically impossible within the limits of this opinion to give any analysis, or even an extended summary, of the evidence introduced before the jury, and upon the motions, it may be proper in this connection to say that in a very lengthy and elaborate opinion by the learned justice who presided at the trial, and before whom the motions were afterwards heard, a very thorough, complete and exhaustive analysis of the evidence has been furnished as the basis upon which his denial of the motions was founded; and that opinion will undoubtedly be filed in the proceedings.

An examination of the record discloses two classes of evidence relied on by the government as fastening the guilt upon these respondents.These classes consist of the alleged confessions of both respondents in relation to the crime, and their identification and presence within the state, and in the immediate vicinity of these operations, on two previous occasions the year before, and also their identification and presence in Dexter, and in and about the bank building, on the day on which the murder was committed.These two classes of evidence, while not in any sense dependent upon each other, are nevertheless in a most remarkable and striking degree in all their essential particulars entirely consistent, and in harmony with each other.

The story as told by Charles F. Stain of his father's confessions to him, and as to what occurred on two former trips of exploration from Massachusetts into Maine, in 1877, was the starting point from which the government was able to develop, by testimony entirely independent of this witness, a chain of evidence of such strength as left no doubt in the minds of the jury of the commission of the crime charged, and of the guilt of these respondents.That evidence, when discovered, stands upon its own merit, inasmuch as it is entirely disconnected with the testimony of young Stain, which was but the key which unlocked the chambers of this crime, and made plain all the evidence of these men's guilt.However much of truth or fiction the disclosures of this man may be supposed to contain, there is certainly one fact which stands out transcendently above all others, and that is that these disclosures have led to the discovery of most important evidence against the accused, which would never have been discovered without his aid.While a large part of the testimony discloses evidence whose only object and purpose is to impeach this witness, it is a most striking and significant phase of the government's case that it is in no sense dependent upon the credibility of this witness.The government's case does not rest upon the testimony of Charles F. Stain alone.It is not whether the story of this man, standing alone, is to be fully believed or not.The conviction of these men was not based upon that.Yet one of the most forcible demonstrations of the substantial truth of the testimony of young Stain, in all the material elements of the case, is that it is so completely in harmony with so many independent facts and circumstances, and the testimony of so many independent and distinct witnesses.Affirmations and denials by word of mouth may be fabricated but circumstances and the happening of facts cannot.The latter is the crucible wherein to test the truth or falsity of the former.The corroborations of this witness in his accusation against the prisoners are not few or accidental, but many and various, each imparting and receiving strength from the other.It is not within the proper scope of this opinion to set forth in detail these numerous corroborations, which are disclosed by the vast volume of other testimony, introduced both to support and impeach the accusation made by this witness.It is sufficient to say that the record discloses these corroborations.They exist in reference to many matters, the evidence of which could not possibly have been anticipated by him if his story were a fabrication.His story was told—and in all its essentials the same as repeated from the witness stand— long before he knew, so far as can be perceived, that a single witness or a single circumstance would be brought in confirmation of his accusation.As remarked by the chief justice in the opinion to which we have referred: "The story is full of details connected with each other, and of collateral facts, many of them of minor consequence, consistent with each other, which naked falsehood would hardly attempt to include in its manufacture.Truth weaves without effort a finer web than falsehood can with all its art and cunning. "

With the story of young Stain as the starting point, the government next sought corroborative information from John F. Harvey, who for years was an associate of the respondents, but who for a long time had lived apart from them.He is a brother-in-law of the defendant Stain, and testified to statements and confessions made to him by Cromwell five years before the trial, and before the story of Charles F. Stain.This information was not volunteered on his part, nor did he confess any knowledge of the affair until a second interview made on behalf of the government in June or July, 1887.This witness is also supported in the details and circumstances of this confidential admission confided by Cromwell to him, in the fall of 1882, and by the subsequent statements of Cromwell to another government witness, tending strongly towards confession, and which Cromwell upon the stand found it very difficult to deny.Very many of the details given in the story of young Stain in relation to circumstances and transactions prior to this tragedy are also given by Harvey, with little chance of confederation between them.

But how is this testimony and the case of the government met on the part of the defense?It is not one of confession and avoidance, not one which admits that there had been excursions from Medfield into Maine prior to 1878, in which young Stain had accompanied these respondents for proper and legitimate purposes, but that the father never confessed that he was in Dexter in February, 1878, or that Cromwell, although admitting other crimes to Harvey, his former associate, had never acknowledged his guilt in this affair.No; the defense strikes deeper and bolder than that.It is this: That Barron died by his own hand, and that the prisoners had no connection whatever with his death; that they never made any preliminary excursions into Maine prior to his death; that they were never in Dexter in their lives; and that the testimony of young Stain and Harvey is wholly false, and devoid of any foundation.

That these respondents had not only made two former excursions of explorasion into Maine, and into Dexter,—once in the summer, and once in the fall, before this tragedy,—and had been transported across the country from this point to Corinna and Madison, there can be no shadow of doubt, as the evidence from numerous witnesses upon that point, detailing facts and circumstances, is both convincing and conclusive.Upon this question the testimony of Charles F. Stain is incontrovertibly corroborated.While his testimony is attacked upon minor matters of details, and to some extent in relation to dates given by him, it is nevertheless supported and fortified by an array of facts and circumstances too strong to be overcome.The essential question was not over dates, but over events.It was not so much in what month these trips were made, as whether or not they were made; and whether these respondents were in Dexter, and were carried across the country to other points, on two occasions prior to this tragedy.This was a strong point in behalf of the government.It was so conclusively proved, independently of the testimony of young Stain, that its effect was materially felt by the defense, which asserted as boldly that the prisoners were never in Dexter in their lives, as that they had no connection with the death of Barron.

But the most important evidence, perhaps, in the case is that which was offered to prove that the prisoners were seen in Dexter during the day of Barron's death.Upon this, as well as in explanation and corroboration of the other evidence, depended the great power of the government's case.The important and convincing facts which overthrow all defense, in connection with...