Territory Hawai`i v. Hall

• Decision Date: 14 May 1952
• Docket Number: NO. 2786.,2786.
• Citation: 39 Haw. 397
• Parties: TERRITORY OF HAWAII v. SABLE HALL.
• Court: Hawaii Supreme Court

39 Haw. 397

TERRITORY OF HAWAII

v.SABLE HALL.

NO. 2786.

Supreme Court of the Territory of Hawai‘i.

Argued May 1, 1952.

Decided May 14, 1952.

OPINION TEXT STARTS HEREERROR TO CIRCUIT COURT FIRST CIRCUIT, HON. J. E. PARKS, JUDGE.

Syllabus by the Court

A trial judge has the right to question a witness to elicit facts or clarify evidence so long as this is done in a fair and impartial way and is necessary to bring out facts essential to a just verdict. In this regard he has a wide latitude and discretion. The exercise of his discretion will not be reviewed on appeal except in cases of abuse thereof.

Corpus delicti may be proved by circumstantial evidence provided such evidence is sufficiently clear to exclude any reasonable hypothesis of innocence.

It is not essential that the corpus delicti should be established by evidence independent of that which tends to connect the defendant with the perpetration of the crime. The same evidence which tends to prove the one may also prove the other so that the corpus delicti and the guilt of the defendant may stand together inseparably on one foundation of circumstantial evidence.

G. Y. Kobayashi (also on the brief) for plaintiff in error.

R. E. St. Sure, Assistant Public Prosecutor ( A. R. Hawkins, Public Prosecutor with him on the brief), present but argument not required by court.

TOWSE, C. J., LE BARON AND STAINBACK, JJ.

OPINION OF THE COURT BY STAINBACK, J.

The defendant was indicted for the crime of larceny in the first degree, to wit, that she did take $163, the property of one Boyce Plyler. Defendant was convicted before a jury and sentenced to ten years in prison.

On April 13, 1949, Plyler and another sailor in the United States Navy arrived in Honolulu and registered at a hotel; at that time Plyler had $170 in eight $20 bills in his wallet in his pocket and $10 in his front shirt pocket. Subsequently the sailors went to a chop suey place on Hotel street and Plyler spent a portion of the $10 he had in his shirt pocket. After the sailors left the chop suey place and walked down the street, Plyler was stopped by the defendant who asked him if he wanted a woman; this was about 2:00 o'clock a.m. Defendant grabbed his arm and started to play with his privates; one of the defendant's hands was inside his trousers and the other in his left front trouser pocket. She told Plyler to go down the street and she would follow. As Plyler walked down the street he noticed that defendant walked the other way with another couple. Becoming suspicious, he reached for his wallet and found it empty. He and his companion then ran down the alley, caught the defendant and asked her to give him back his money. A scuffle ensued and Officer Guigni ran over, took the persons into custody and brought them to Beretania street where Officer Schwartzman was on duty. The two officers and the victim then noticed that the defendant had a bulge in her mouth; when asked what she had in her mouth she did not answer but bent over and removed something green therefrom. He asked her to open her hand and he recovered $163 from the defendant's hand, consisting of eight $20 bills and three $1 bills. Defendant was taken to the police station and charged with larceny in the first degree.

The first assignment of error is that the court committed error in questioning the prosecution's witness, Boyce Plyler, after both counsel had finished their questions of this witness.

After Plyler had finished testifying the court asked a few questions as to the location and content of his wallet before he met the defendant and asked him to show the jurors where the defendant's hands were when she “felt him up.” The witness demonstrated that one of the defendant's hands was inside his trousers and the other in his left front pocket, and that he had put his wallet in his left front pocket. The examination was brief and to the point and, so far as is shown by the record, there was no unfairness in the judge's attitude or in the form of his questions.

The general rule is that a trial judge has the right to question a witness to elicit facts or clarify evidence as long as this is done in a fair and impartial way and is necessary to bring out the truth and facts essential to a just verdict.

In Beal v. State, 138 Ala. 94, 35 So. 58, the court in discussing this question said: “It is always permissible for the Court, and its duty, to propound to witnesses such questions as it is deemed necessary to elicit any relevant and material evidence, without regard to its effect -- whether beneficial or prejudicial to the one party or the other. The development and establishment of the truth is its province and duty.”

In Dutton v. Territory, 13 Ariz. 7, 108 Pac. 224, the court in considering a case where the trial judge had participated in extensive interrogation of the witnesses, said: “It was not only the right, but the duty of a trial judge to question witnesses to bring out material points not made clear by counsel * * *.” It stated further: “In this regard he has wide latitude and discretion, the exercise of which discretion will not be reviewed on appeal except in case of abuse thereof.”

Hargrove v. United States, 25 F. (2d) 258, goes very far indeed in permitting the trial judge not only to ask questions but to comment on certain phases of the case where the questions were intended to bring out the full facts to the jury.

Territory v. Kekipi, 24 Haw. 500, held that a trial judge's questions were justifiable to throw a light on obscure testimony where he did not intimate an opinion on the facts in so...