Sullivan v. State

• Decision Date: 13 March 1939
• Docket Number: 27135,27136.
• Parties: SULLIVAN v. STATE. FLICK v. SAME.
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

19 N.E.2d 739

215 Ind. 343

SULLIVAN v. STATE.

FLICK v. SAME.

Nos. 27135, 27136.

Supreme Court of Indiana

March 13, 1939

Appeals from Criminal Court, Lake County; Wm. J. Murray judge.

Joseph H. Conroy and W. J. Glendening, both of Hammond, for appellants.

Omer S. Jackson, Atty. Gen., and Thos. Longfellow, Depty. Atty Gen., for the State.

FANSLER, Judge.

These cases are identical. They are appeals from judgments of the Criminal Court of Lake County, finding the appellants guilty of robbery.

The cases were submitted to the court for trial, without the intervention of a jury, in April, 1935, and the evidence heard. The cases were taken under advisement by the court pending the disposition of other cases against the defendants which were appealed to this court. The record shows notations of continuances on ten separate occasions. Finally the court fixed June 20, 1938, for final disposition of the cases. On that date the defendants filed verified motions for leave to further cross-examine two witnesses for the purpose of showing that they had, since testifying, made statements that they were in doubt as to the identity of the robbers, and in the event they denied making such statements the defendants desired to introduce impeaching evidence. The motions were denied, and error is predicated upon the result.

The question presented to the trial court by such a motion is of the same character as that presented by a motion for a new trial on account of newly discovered evidence. It is the duty of the trial court to take into consideration the probable probative force of the matter sought to be developed in the light of the evidence already received, and to consider whether the new evidence would probably produce a different result than that which would be reached from the evidence already in. In these cases the trial was by the court and all of the evidence put before the trial judge. Three witnesses other than the ones sought to be recross-examined, had testified positively to the identity of the robbers. The trial judge had heard the witnesses testify and had a right to consider their credibility. It may be that the trial judge considered that, even though the two witnesses in question had afterward expressed a doubt, the evidence of the other three was sufficient to convince him, who was the sole trior of the facts, that the defendants were the guilty parties. No one could be in a better position to know whether evidence that the two witnesses in question had afterward expressed a doubt would affect the result. It cannot be said that an abuse of discretion has been shown. See Sullivan et al. v. State, 1937, 212 Ind. 79, 6 N.E.2d 951; Rector et al. v. State, 1937, 211 Ind 483, 190 N.E. 172, 7 N.E.2d 794; Gavalis v. State, 1922, 192 Ind. 42, 135 N.E. 147.

On the day fixed for final disposition of the cases, the defendants filed identical motions to be discharged for delay of more than three terms in disposing of their cases. They rely upon section 9-1403, Burns' Ann.St.1933, section 2239 Baldwin's Ind.St.1934, which provides that no person shall be held without trial for a period embracing more...