Woodhull v. State
| Decision Date | 06 June 1969 |
| Docket Number | 133,Nos. 132,s. 132 |
| Citation | 43 Wis.2d 202,168 N.W.2d 281 |
| Parties | Dennis WOODHULL, Plaintiff in Error, v. STATE of Wisconsin, Defendant in Error (two cases). State |
| Court | Wisconsin Supreme Court |
On April 13, 1967, the Plaintiff in Error (hereinafter referred to as defendant) was charged with first degree murder and armed robbery. Trial was had to a jury which on March 8, 1968, acquitted the defendant of first degree murder and found him guilty of the third degree murder of Nicholas Ruder. A motion to set aside the verdict, and in the alternative for a new trial, was heard and denied. The defendant was sentenced to an indeterminate term of not more than twenty-five years.
Atinsky, Kahn & Sicula, Paul E. Sicula, Milwaukee, for plaintiff in error.
Robert W. Warren, Atth. Gen., William A. Platz, Asst. Atty. Gen., Madison, E. Michael McCann, Dist. Atty., Milwaukee County, Bruce C. O'Neill, Asst. Dist. Atty., Milwaukee, for defendant in error.
In April, 1967, the sixty-two year old Ruder lived in a room above a tavern at 6409 West Greenfield avenue. Twelve to fiften other men lived in rooms above the tavern.
At about 3:30 a.m. on April 10, 1967, one of the roomers above the tavern went to the lavatory which was located directly across from Ruder's room. He smelled smoke coming from the victim's room, opened the door, and discovered the victim lying on the floor.
An investigation by the West Allis police followed. Inside Ruder's room there were rags piled up directly inside the door across the jamb. There was a small pile of clothing smoldering in the middle of the room. Items were strewn about the room, and the drawers of Ruder's dressers were open. There was an open wallet on the bed with its contents strewn about.
Ruder was lying face down on the floor with his feet against the door and a pool of blood about his head. He had numerous cuts and bruises on his head. His hands were behind his back with two neckties joined together tied around his right wrist. The left wrist was not tied, but was close to the right wrist as though the two wrists had been tied together at one time.
There was a 2 2 piece of wood with blood stains on it lying on the bed. This piece of wood proved to be one-half of the landlady's clothes pole which she kept in her yard at the rear of the premises. The other half of the clothes pole was found that same morning.
Six police officers who were involved in the investigation of the crime testified, in essence, that they were unable to uncover any clues which would point to a suspect. A roomer who lived two doors down the hall from Ruder said that he was home during the apparent time of the crime and heard and saw nothing. The police investigation revealed that none of the roomers above the tavern whom they questioned had heard anything, seen any strangers, or offered anything that could implicate anyone.
Dr. Helen Young, the Milwaukee county medical examiner, performed the autopsy on Ruder and was of the opinion that Ruder's death was caused by one or more blows to the head and these blows could not have been self-inflicted. Dr. Young testified that she could not be certain when Ruder died.
Testimony concerning the defendant's activities and Ruder's activities on April 9 and 10 was also presented. The defendant lived above a tavern about three blocks from where Ruder lived. Ruder and the defendant frequented some of the same taverns. There is nothing in the record to indicate that Ruder and the defendant knew each other.
Mrs. Bitters, whose husband owned Ken's Inn (a tavern located in Ruder's neighborhood) testified that she was tending bar on Sunday, April 9. Ruder came into the tavern about 2 p.m. that day and left at about 4 p.m. During that interim the defendant entered the tavern with another man (not Ruder) and left again at 10 p.m. to get something to eat.
While Ruder and the defendant were in the tavern, Mrs. Bitters was having difficulty getting Ruder to pay for his drinks. She threw up her hands and made a statement, not directed to anyone in particular, that 'Here is a man (Ruder) that has a lot of money but he doesn't pay for his drinks.' The remark was not directed at the defendant, and fifteen or twenty other persons were in the bar at the time.
The defendant returned again at 11:40 p.m. Mrs. Bitters refused to serve him because he was trying to pick a fight with a man at the bar and he already had too much to drink. The defendant left about midnight.
Mrs. Bitters, and one of the men who roomed above the tavern where Ruder lived, testified that Ruder bragged about his money a lot. He did his bragging in front of strangers as well as friends.
The proprietor of Erceg's Super Bar testified that Ruder left his tavern, which was located in Ruder's neighborhood, at 10 p.m. on April 9, when the proprietor closed the place. There is no accounting of Ruder's activities from 10 p.m. on April 9, until his body was found at 3:30 a.m. on April 10.
Natale Pellegrini, the owner of Pasquale's Hall, the tavern over which the defendant roomed, testified that the defendant had a beer in his tavern between 7 and 8 o'clock p.m. on April 9, left, and then returned after midnight. Pellegrini asked the defendant for some rent money. The defendant then used the phone. Pellegrini testified that he did not pay any attention to what the defendant said on the phone, but he did hear the defendant say he was in some sort of trouble. The defendant then left. There is no accounting for the defendant's time after he left Pasquale's Hall. The defendant did not testify at the trial.
Sometime on April 10, 1967, the defendant was placed in the Milwaukee county jail on an unrelated offense. Two witnesses for the State testified as to conversation they had with the defendant while they were in the same cell block with him. His conviction was predicated on the testimony of these two men.
On this appeal, the defendant raises nine issues.
Sufficiency of the Evidence.
The defendant argues that the evidence adduced at trial was insufficient to prove the defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
The credibility of the two inmate-informers and other witnesses was particularly a question for the jury, an analysis of the evidence leads to the conclusion that the jury could properly have found the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
The defendant's informer-jailmates were Mr. Wild and Mr. Smith. Wild had been convicted of a crime three times and Smith seven times.
The defense contends that Wild and Smith obtained their information from newspaper articles and not from the defendant. The defendant also points out some discrepancies between the Wild version and the Smith version. The defense presented two witnesses, Wendell Weidelmann and George Mouzis (or Mouizes), who were in the same jail tier with Smith, Wild, and the defendant on April 10, and 11, 1967. They testified that they and others read a newspaper article concerning Ruder's death which was discussed, and that they at no time heard the defendant make any statement implicating himself in Ruder's death.
Wild testified that he, the defendant, Smith, and an unidentified man were together in a cell on Monday, April 10, and that about 2 or 3 in the afternoon the defendant related his story. Wild testified that either that night or the next morning he read in the newspaper about Ruder's death. The article was discussed by the cellmates and the defendant allegedly went more into detail as to what he had done.
On April 11 or 12, 1967, Captain Thompson and other officers of the West Allis police department came to the jail to question Wild about his involvement in a burglary. Wild then told them about the defendant's statement. When the police acted like they were going to charge Wild with Ruder's death, Wild told them to talk to Smith who could corroborate his story. Wild was then removed from the cell block and did not converse with the defendant again. The record does not indicate whether Wild talked to Smith after relating the story to the West Allis police.
The next day the West Allis police officers returned and Wild's statement was reduced to writing.
Smith testified that the conversation with the defendant took place after supper, in the evening of April 10, 1967. The next day he was removed to the house of correction to serve a term for drunk and disorderly conduct. On April 13, 1967, Captain Thompson and another West Allis police officer questioned him about the defendant's confession. Smith then made a statement in writing. Smith testified that he did not read any newspaper article about Ruder's death and that the conversation took place before the evening paper arrived.
The following is an abridgment of Smith's testimony as to some of the details of the alleged conversation with the defendant:
He followed the guy home. He knew the guy had a lot of money. He hid in the lavatory and smoked a cigarette or two, and waited for the guy to go to sleep. There was some kind of wooden panel on the door to the guy's room and he loosened one end of it enough to get his hand in. He opened the panel up to see if the guy was sleeping. He then went outside. He got ahold of a clothes pole. He broke off an end and went back. He unlocked the door adn reached over the guy. The guy woke up and he started hitting the guy with the club. He took the man's wallet; took the money. The man was on the floor bleeding and he tied the man up with some ties. Just before he left he checked to see if the man was still alive because there was a lot of blood. He thought he hurt the guy pretty bad. So then he untied the ties loose enough so if he did wake up, he'd be able to move around, and then he left and went to another tavern.
Wild's story adds the following:
The defendant let the guy go first into the building where he lived. He didn't know where the guy stayed, which room he was in, so he knocked on a door. 'He asked...
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