Stumbaugh v. State, 3937
| Decision Date | 07 September 1979 |
| Docket Number | No. 3937,3937 |
| Citation | 599 P.2d 166 |
| Parties | Ronald STUMBAUGH, Appellant, v. STATE of Alaska, Appellee. |
| Court | Alaska Supreme Court |
Paul L. Henderson, Anchorage, for appellant.
W. H. Hawley, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., Joseph Balfe, Dist. Atty., Anchorage, Avrum M. Gross, Atty. Gen., Juneau, for appellee.
Before RABINOWITZ, C. J., and CONNOR, BOOCHEVER, BURKE and MATTHEWS, JJ.
Ronald Stumbaugh appeals his conviction for first degree arson, contending that evidence of an experiment should not have been heard by the jury, that the police searched his mobile home before obtaining a warrant, and that the evidence against him was insufficient for conviction. Stumbaugh also challenges his sentence of five years and four months, with five years suspended, as excessive. We affirm the conviction and the sentence.
In order to resolve Stumbaugh's contentions, we find it necessary to detail the applicable evidence presented at the trial. Before coming to Alaska, Ronald Stumbaugh purchased a travel trailer, financed in part by a loan of approximately $3,000.00 from Credit Thrift, a finance company in Washington. The trailer was collateral for the loan.
After arriving in Anchorage with his foster son, Stumbaugh traded in the trailer to Anchorage Trailer Sales, receiving a $5,500.00 credit, and purchased a $34,099.00 1976 Schult mobile home. Stumbaugh arranged for financing from a bank and moved into the mobile home around July 19, 1977. Stumbaugh took out a package insurance policy which included $35,000.00 maximum against physical damage to the mobile home (from fire, vandalism, storms and the life), and $7,500.00 for loss of personal property (household furniture and personal effects). 1
Around August 1, 1977, Stumbaugh obtained a job as a clerk in a supermarket, which had a Tesoro gas station attached to it. In his statement to the police, Stumbaugh said he pumped gas when the station needed help. At trial, Stumbaugh said he never worked at the station adjacent to his store, although he had twice done relief work at other Tesoro stations.
In August, when Ancorage Trailer Sales tried to sell the trailer that Stumbaugh had traded in, they found that it was subject to a lien for Stumbaugh's debt to Credit Thrift in Washington. Stumbaugh had made two payments in May to Credit Thrift, but none thereafter. 2 Stumbaugh testified that he thought he owned the travel trailer free and clear 3 and had made a personal loan, not one secured by the trailer, from Credit Thrift. The general manager at Anchorage Trailer Sales and the salesperson, who had arranged for the trade-in, contacted Stumbaugh a number of times and hinted at legal action if the matter was not resolved.
On August 16, 1977, around 10:00 in the evening, neighbors noticed flames in Stumbaugh's mobile home and called the fire department. Firefighters arrived at the scene within minutes, and extinguished the fire. An insurance adjuster testified that the trailer was a total loss, however. Stumbaugh and his foster son returned around midnight, after seeing a double feature. Stumbaugh had taken his two dogs and left them in his truck during the movies. A few days after the fire, Stumbaugh signed five $1,000.00 promissory notes to Anchorage Trailer Sales who, in turn, paid off Stumbaugh's debt to Credit Thrift. 4 Stumbaugh applied for insurance reimbursement the day after the fire.
Chief Anderson of the Anchorage Fire Department, a firefighter of eighteen years experience, was the senior official at the scene of the fire that evening. He noticed a number of things that piqued his interest: the most intensive burning in the living room; a flare up after the fire was out; an odor in the trailer, possibly of a flamable liquid; an unusual burn pattern on the carpet heavily burned areas next to lightly burned ones; and some burning around the electrical receptacles. The odor, the burn pattern, and the momentary flare caused Chief Anderson to consider the possibility of an accelerant, that is, that a substance had "been poured there that caused the fire to burn on the floor in certain areas more than it did on other areas," but he formed no definite opinion. 5
John Glenn, an expert in arson investigation, was the Anchorage Fire Department investigator who worked on this case. Daniel Weatherly was the state trooper. 6 The two are frequently paired to investigate specific fires. The day after the fire, they obtained a search warrant for Stumbaugh's trailer. It was disputed whether the warrant was obtained before or after a search of the trailer.
Glenn and Weatherly went to the trailer; Chief Anderson arrived after them. Glenn and Weatherly took, among other things, two carpet samples, two electrical outlets from the living room, and an atomizer spray can. Chief Anderson and Investigator Glenn both thought the carpet smelled strongly of kerosene or diesel fuel. A thorough inspection found no appliance or furnace that used diesel fuel. Based on the burn pattern and the carpet's smell, both Anderson and Glenn concluded the fire had been spread by an accelerant. Chief Anderson stated, "You don't live in a trailer with with flammable liquids poured all over the carpet."
Subsequent chemical analysis of the carpet samples and the atomizer revealed significant levels of petroleum hydrocarbons, similar if not identical to those found in Tesoro diesel fuel oil. Eugene Mockerman, an electrical expert in residential electric installation, examined the trailer itself and the outlets taken by Glenn and Weatherly. He concluded that the fire was not of electrical origin because the outlets were damaged
Investigator Weatherly took a statement from Stumbaugh two days after the fire. Stumbaugh denied any knowledge of how the fire started and gave signed permission for a further search of the trailer. That search occurred with Stumbaugh present and yielded a box of candles, with one piece of a candle missing. The box originally contained five candles. There were only three seven and three-quarter inch whole candles left, two partial bottom pieces, and one top piece. 7 The bottom pieces, when compared with the whole candle, were missing a two and a half inch piece.
Glenn and Weatherly later conducted an experiment with a two and a half inch piece of candle from the box, a pint of diesel fuel oil from the fire station, and a six foot piece of carpet of the type installed in Stumbaugh's trailer. They conducted the experiment in an abandoned box car where the temperature was about 35o . The investigators placed the carpet on a metal drip pan, poured on the oil, and put the lit candle on the carpet. The candle burned down to the carpet, igniting the diesel fuel, after one hour and fourteen minutes. Seventeen minutes later, the flame reached the end of the carpet. The fire burned along the path of the accelerant and consumed the entire candle. Glenn thought that "the carpeting from the test resembled the carpeting that was in the trailer house." 8 He concluded that the candle was probably used as a time delay device to ignite the fire.
The state's theory at trial was that financial pressures caused Ronald Stumbaugh to set fire to his own house. 9 A neighbor testified that he had seen Stumbaugh carrying boxes from his house a few days before the fire, 10 and the prosecutor emphasized that Stumbaugh had taken his dogs with him to the movies. Chief Anderson and Investigator Glenn testified, giving their conclusions about the origin of the fire. Glenn testified about the results of both searches of Stumbaugh's trailer and explained the experiment with the candle in detail. The state called the personnel manager of Toppers Oil, the distributor for the Tesoro Company. He contradicted Stumbaugh's testimony that the Tesoro station adjoining his workplace and one of the stations where Stumbaugh did relief work did not pump diesel fuel oil. Mockerman, the electrical inspector, testified that the fire was not of electrical origin.
The main witnesses for the defense were Stumbaugh and his foster son. Both testified that they went to the movies, and Stumbaugh testified he learned of the fire only upon returning home that night. Stumbaugh had no idea how diesel fuel oil would have gotten on the carpet of his trailer. The defense emphasized the lack of direct evidence linking Stumbaugh to the fire, and the dissimilarities between the conditions of the experiment and the actual fire. Counsel's closing statement points to other possibilities for the origin of the fire: faulty electrical wiring, a foster son who wanted to help his father out of financial troubles, or arson by someone who was angry at Stumbaugh. The jury did not find these arguments persuasive and found Stumbaugh guilty of first degree arson, a violation of AS 11.20.010.
The basic requirement for admissibility of experimental evidence is that the experiment occurred under substantially similar conditions to the actual event. 11 In Love v. State, 457 P.2d 622, 627, 628 (Alaska 1969), we explained:
(F)or (experimental) evidence to be admissible, it should have been developed under conditions substantially similar to those surrounding the event in issue. The rule of substantial similarity of conditions does not require an identity of conditions but only that degree of similarity which will insure that the results of the experiment are probative. In some cases a high degree of similarity may not be attainable, yet the evidence nevertheless may be enlightening to the jury.
In applying the test of substantial similarity, the trial court should be guided by the following principles: Are the dissimilarities likely to distort the results of the experiment to the degree that the evidence is not relevant? Can the dissimilarities be adjusted for or explained so that...
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...sufficiency of the evidence are the same regardless of whether the evidence is direct, circumstantial or both. Alaska: Stumbaugh v. State, 599 P.2d 166 (Alaska 1979); Allen v. State, 420 P.2d 465 (Alaska 1966). Arizona: State v. Harvill, 106 Ariz. 386, 476 P.2d 841 (1970). Arkansas: Murray ......
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...a high degree of similarity may not be attainable, yet the evidence nonetheless may be enlightening to the jury." Stumbaugh v. State, 599 P.2d 166, 170 (Alaska 1979). Further, any variation between the actual and experimental conditions is a factor affecting the weight of the evidence, rath......