State v. William Dudley

• Decision Date: 20 May 1924
• Citation: 96 W.Va. 481
• Parties: State v. William Dudley
• Court: West Virginia Supreme Court

96 W.Va. 481

State

v.William Dudley

Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia.

Submitted May 6, 1924.

Decided May 20, 1924.

1. Criminal Law Rule as to Conviction on Circumstantial Evidence, Stated.

To convict of murder upon circumstantial evidence in whole or in part, all the circumstances from which the conclusion of guilt is drawn, and without which it cannot be drawn, must be established by full proof; as well as every essential circumstance necessary to the conclusion as if the whole issue of guilt rested upon the establishment of each essential circumstance. (p. 496).

2. Same Circumstances Must Exclude Every Reasonable Hypothesis of Innocence to Warrant Conviction.

Such circumstances when fully proven must be consistent with the hypothesis of the guilt of the prisoner, and exclude every other reasonable hypothesis of innocence, in order that a verdict of. guilty may be warranted. (p. 495).

3. Same Circumstances Which Do Not Prove Defendant Guilty Beyond Reasonable Doubt Will Not Sustain Conviction.

Proof of facts and circumstances which arouse strong suspicion of guilt or guilty knowledge of a crime on? the part of the accused, but which do not prove beyond a reasonable doubt bis criminal agency in its commission, will not sustain a verdict of guilty. (p. 496).

Error to Circuit Court, Pocahontas County. "William. Dudley was convicted of murder in the first degree, and he brings error.

Judgment reversed; verdict set aside; new trial awarded.

C. N. McNeil, for plaintiff in error.

E. T. England, Attorney General, and R. A. Blessing, Assistant Attorney General, for the State.

Lively, Judge:

In March, 1923, William Dudley, Samuel Davis and Charles James were jointly indicted for the murder of Bascom McFall, the indictment alleging that the murder was committed on the 19th day of December, 1918. On the 6th of April following William Dudley was tried, convicted of first degree murder, and sentenced to confinement for life in the penitentiary. He obtained this writ of error.

The evidence is wholly circumstantial; the main assignment of error in the petition for the writ is that the evidence is not sufficient to sustain the verdict. Defendant's counsel has filed no brief, and relies upon the statements made in the petition for the writ, in which there are two points of error assigned: (1) that the motion to set aside the verdict as contrary to the law and evidence should have been sustained; (2) that the court erred in overruling defendant's objections to various questions propounded to the witnesses for the state, and in sustaining objections to the various and sundry questions asked of the witnesses by the defendant as shown by the record. No special bills of exceptions were taken to the introduction or refusal of evidence, and the motion to set aside the verdict did not point out any particular error in that regard, and this assignment of error, too general in its nature, will not be considered. State v. Joe Noble, 96 W. Va. 432, decided this term; Bartlett v. Bank, 11 W. Va. 329. This leaves for consideration the ruling of the court upon the motion to set aside the verdict because contrary to the law and evidence, and necessitates a close: examination and analysis of the evidence. Neither counsel for the accused nor the attorney general has made a condensed recital of the evidence in narrative form so as to present the substance clearly and concisely as required by Rule 5 of the rules of practice in this court. The petition relied upon by the accused, and the brief for the state, each contains a short general statement of the evidence without reference to the pages of the record, and hence, much labor has been placed upon this court. The brief of the attorney general relies upon the well known proposition that the jurors are the triers of fact and that the court will not disturb the finding of the jury if the evidence, together with the reasonable inferences and deductions which may be drawn therefrom, are sufficient to sustain the verdict.; citing State v. Cooper, 26 W. Va. 338; State v. Stowers, 66 W. Va 198; State v. Henry, 51 W. Va 283, and several other "West Virginia ca^es of like import.

The crime is supposed to have been committed in the town of Cass or in its near vicinity. Cass is on the Greenbrier river, and came into existence by reason of lumber operations in the vicinity owned by West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company. The main portion of the town, containing the offices, store and buildings of the Pulp company lies on the west side of the river, which is not very large at that point. On the east side of the river, opposite the main town, and said not to be within the control of the Pulp company, are several houses of a more or less disreputable character located up and down the river. Among these houses which are of special interest, is that of Sophronia Carter, a negro woman who appears to be the paramour of Charles James, alias "Jelly Roll, '' one of the defendants; down the river from her house is located the Riverview Hotel conducted by James Breakiron, in which, according to the theory of the state, the crime was committed; and still farther down the river is the dwelling of John Harris, alias "William" Harris, "Slim," or "C. & O. Slim." The record indicates, that there is a bridge across the Greenbrier river a short distance below Breakiron's hotel, which connects the portions of the town lying on each side of the river.

On Saturday, April 7, 1919, about 4 o'clock in the afternoon Frank Smith, who lived in the "mill pond" about onehalf mile up the river from the location of the houses above described, saw some men near the road presumably engaged in playing poker, and he went in a roundabout way to observe what they were doing, accompanied by a small dog. A road ran along the river at this place extending down to east Cass and by the houses designated and for some distance, not disclosed, up the river above where Smith lived. In a laurel thicket about twenty-five feet from the road in a cluster of logs a body was found by Smith, lying upon its face behind the logs, without shoes, the feet being enclosed in white socks over which a rock was placed. Smith gave the alarm, various persons assembled, the body was left where found, and a guard being placed over it, until an inquest was held on the spot two days afterwards. Bascum McFall, an employee of the Pulp Company at Spruce, one of its lumber camps, had disappeared on December 19, 1918, and efforts to find him had been unavailing. His father C. H. McFall, resided in Greenbrier county, and attended the inquest and identified the body as that of his son Bascom, not from his features but from the clothes he wore, by his name in the coat pocket written with an indelible pencil, and by a little pocket comb. He identified the blue serge suit found on the body as having been purchased by his son from the Greenbrier Clothing House at Lewisburg. The body had on a blue serge suit, purple and black striped necktie, white shirt, white socks, a belt corresponding to one which Bascom McFall wore when he disappeared, no shoes, no hat, and a top shirt wrapped in paper was found in his side pocket. There was no money, watch or other valuables in the clothes. The windpipe and jugular vein were severed by a cut on the neck three inches long made by a sharp instrument, The body contained no blood except a very small quantity in the branches of the windpipe near the cut. Dr. Salter, who conducted the autopsy, was of the opinion that the body was emptied of blood in two minutes after the wound was inflicted, and that the wound caused the death. One side of the face and both hands had been gnawed off presumably by some animal; the doctor examined the heart, lungs, the abdominal cavity and other vital parts of the body and found them in normal condition; there were no bruises on the body. The description of Bascom McFall when he disappeared, given by various other witnesses, including the color and kind of clothes which he wore, corresponded with the size of the body and with the clothes which were on it. At the time of Bascom McFall's disappearance on the 19th of December, he wore tan shoes and had purchased a mackinaw coat on that day; he also had a suit case. Neither of these articles was ever found. The body found is reasonably identified as the body of Bascom McFall. His death was caused by the severance of the windpipe and jugular vein. The hiding of the body behind the logs in the laurel thicket, the white socks on the feet covered by a flat stone, would indicate strongly that the death was caused by criminal agency. Of course, it is not absolutely clear that the wound was not self inflicted; but the secretion of the body at the place and in the manner set out would strongly indicate that a crime had been committed and that all evidence of it had been attempted to be destroyed or delayed. The corpus delicti has been reasonably well proven. The first and most indispensable fact has thus been established, namely, that a crime had been committed, for if there be no crime there can be no criminal. It is well established that no one can be required to answer for a crime without satisfactory proof of the corpus delicti, either by direct evidence or by irresistible and cogent grounds of presumption. State v. Flanagan, 26 W. Va. 116.

Does the evidence show beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant William Dudley committed the crime? This is the crucial question, and involves a close analysis of the evidence and the inferences which may be legitimately drawn therefrom.

Great caution should always be exercised by the trial and appellate courts in setting aside the verdict where a new trial is asked for solely upon the ground that the verdict is contrary to the evidence; or that the verdict is without sufficient evidence to support it. Great weight is always given to the verdict of the jury and the judgment of the trial court in such cases by the appellate court; and ...