State v. Stewart
| Decision Date | 13 January 1942 |
| Docket Number | 45605. |
| Citation | 1 N.W.2d 626,231 Iowa 585 |
| Parties | STATE v. STEWART. |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
Charles H. Lynch, of Des Moines, for appellant.
John M. Rankin, Atty. Gen., Jens Grothe, Asst. Atty. Gen., Francis J. Kuble, Co. Atty., of Des Moines, for appellee.
The defendant in this case, Dale Stewart, is claimed by the State to have violated section 12964 of the 1939 Code, on June 16, 1940, by placing dynamite in the gas heater attached to the furnace in the home of Harvey Wolfkill and his wife Irene Wolfkill, with intent to injure or destroy such dwelling. Defendant entered plea of not guilty, and was convicted and sentenced, and he appeals.
Section 12964 of the Code of 1939, provides punishment for any person, who with intent to destroy or injure any inhabited dwelling house, deposits or throws therein or thereunder, or elsewhere about the same, where its explosion will or is likely to destroy or injure the same any dynamite, nitroglycerin, or giant powder, or other explosive material.
The defendant, who was divorced, roomed at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Wolfkill, in Des Moines. He had known Mrs. Wolfkill five or six years and her husband about a year. On the evening of Sunday, June 16, 1940, Wolfkill went to the basement of his house, lighted the gas in the hot water heater, came upstairs, and, about five minutes after lighting the heater was seated with his wife on the front porch, when the heater exploded, destroying the heater and doing considerable damage to windows, pipes, and the furnace, and some injury to the floor above. The defendant at this time had gone on an errand to a nearby store. The heater, about twenty inches high, is described as two enclosed sets of copper coils, one inside the other, with little space between the two sets, and with the burner lower than the coils. The whole heater is approximately seven or eight inches in diameter. The dynamite stick alleged to have been placed in the heater was about eight inches long, and was stated by one witness to be three-eighths of an inch in diameter, by another about one and one-quarter inches, with an explosive cap in the middle of the stick, and to be placed in the coils might have to be bent. There was evidence that the defendant procured from one Greenland three or four sticks of the explosive, but defendant, while admitting getting dynamite from him, denied getting more than two sticks. There is testimony of Lowe, who states that after defendant's arrest and at his request the witness cleaned out defendant's locker at the place he worked, the Fitch company factory, and found with the clothing therein a stick of dynamite and a cap and fuse. The defendant admitted in evidence that this was his dynamite in the locker. There is nothing in the record showing that he used explosives in his work or for any purpose. The evidence indicates otherwise.
There was other testimony, some relative to the explosive character of dynamite under various conditions.
On Saturday July 20, 1941, the defendant stated to Hardenbrook and Antrim, two police officers, in a room in the jail, near to the door of which a deputy sheriff stood, that he, the defendant, had put the dynamite in the heater of the Wolfkill home and that he crumbled it up or bent it around the coils of the heater. He signed a written statement, or confession, in the presence of the two officers and of Mrs. Snyder, secretary to the detective bureau, who all signed as witnesses. In such confession, he stated his name, age 32, and present residence at the county jail; that he made the statement of his own free will and accord, without threats or promises from the officers, and knowing that it might be used against him, and with knowledge of his constitutional rights and that he did not have to make the statement unless he wanted to. He then stated as to his residence on June 16, that he was returning to the Wolfkill home; that a week or two prior thereto he had obtained the dynamite and caps from Greenland; that he put one stick in his Jocker at Fitch's and one in the heater; that he bent the latter and pushed it up in the middle of the coils, with a cap in the middle of the stick; that this was unknown to anyone but himself, and he did not light the heater thereafter; he had lighted it only a couple of times, Harvey lighted it most of the time, and Mrs. Wolfkill never did light it. In response to a question as to his intention of hurting Wolfkill he stated that some time Wolfkill would light the heater, but he did not know just when he would. The explosive, he stated, in the coil was a couple of inches from the flame. He stated also that he liked Mrs. Wolfkill pretty well; that he had seen dynamite shot, but would not say that he knew much about it.
The principal controversy in the case, this confession, was submitted to the jury, and under instruction No. 6 the jury were fully informed as to the conditions under which it might or might not be considered, the necessity of other corroboration, all in accordance with the procedure recently approved by us in State v. Plude, 230 Iowa 1, 296 N.W. 732 735. See that case and cases cited. The defendant argues that the court erred in overruling both motions for directed verdict and to withdraw the...
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