State v. Wines

• Citation: 65 N.J.L. 31,46 A. 702
• Court: United States State Supreme Court (New Jersey)
• Decision Date: 20 June 1900
• Parties: STATE v. WINES et al.

46 A. 702

65 N.J.L. 31

STATE

v. WINES et al.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

June 20, 1900.

Error to court of quarter sessions, Middlesex county.

Freeman Wines and others were convicted of breaking and entering a house in the nighttime, and to the judgment they bring error. Reversed.

Argued June term, 1900, before the CHIEF JUSTICE and VAN SYCKEL and GUMMERE, JJ.

Robert Adrain, for plaintiffs in error. John S. Voorhees, for the State.

DEPUE, C. J.The plaintiffs in error were jointly on trial under indictment. The first count in the indictment charges that the accused did willfully and maliciously break and enter the dwelling house of one John P. Buckelew by night, with intent willfully and feloniously and with malice aforethought to kill and murder the said John P. Buckelew. The second count charges that the accused did willfully and maliciously break and enter the dwelling house of the said Buckelew by night, with intent the goods and chattels of the said Buckelew feloniously to steal, take, and carry away, etc. The evidence in the case touching the guilt of the accused was largely circumstantial. Buckelew testified that he was awakened about 2 o'clock at night by two men talking on the outside of his house; that they were under the influence of liquor, and he heard one of them say, "I will blow his brains out," and the other was rather expostulating or dissuading him from doing so. The next thing the door was forcibly broken open, and about that time, while lying on his bed, he reached for his shotgun, and fired, and thinks somebody fell or stumbled, and then the two men left. He testified that the voice of one of these men he did not know; it was familiar to him, but he could not place it; that the voice of the other (Wines) he did know; he said he knew him from his youth up; he lived in the immediate neighborhood; that he was familiar with his voice, and does not hesitate now to say upon his oath that the voice was the voice of Wines. He also testified that in the morning he found a hat perforated with shot on the right side, and also found that a restive horse, harnessed to a light carriage, had been tied during the night upon his grounds a short distance from the house; that the tracks indicated that it had been driven in from the road, tied to the fence, and afterwards driven out. He did not see the horse and wagon that night, and did not identify it. On the other hand, there was the testimony of Charles A. Oliver, a detective who investigated the case, that Buckelew never told him that he had recognized the voice of Wines or that he suspected Wines. Oliver testified: "Buckelew told me he could not imagine who it was; could not give any information to start upon, and did not. At the second interview he said he had been thinking the matter over, and he positively identified the voice of one of the people as a man by the name of Bernard Stubblefield and another man whose name I have forgotten; that he recognized them by their voices; and he did not mention Mr. Wines' name or Mr. Booraem's name." The identification of Wines by his voice by Buckelew constitutes the main proof against him of complicity in this crime. It was also proved by Dr. Donohue that that same night, about 2 o'clock, a man came to his office in New Brunswick to be treated for a number of fresh gunshot wounds in the right side of his face. He gave the name of Robert Davison. The doctor testified that the right side of his face was swollen, showing pits of a number of fresh shotmarks, with a great deal of swelling on the side of the face; that his eye was swollen and the eyelids were swollen; that the eyes were closed, and it was impossible to find any shot, as the swelling was so great; that he removed one or two that were lying superficially on the surface, and applied dressing, and told him to report the next day. On his examination in chief, the doctor identified Booraem as the man he saw in his office that evening, and said that the scars were visible at the time of the trial. The doctor, on cross-examination, testified that he did not remember ever to have seen Booraem before that day; that, when subsequently called upon to identify him with Mr. Housell, the witness testified that the swelling had gone down from the face, and he could not say positively enough to go before a justice of the peace and swear that he was the man that came to his office, and feel reasonably certain that he was; that the man whose face he had dressed at his office was a very different look ing man from...