Title: Miller v. State

State: indiana

Issuer: Indiana Supreme Court

Document:

250 Ind. 656 (1968)
236 N.E.2d 585
MILLER
v.
STATE OF INDIANA.
No. 31,000.

Supreme Court of Indiana.
Filed May 13, 1968.
Rehearing denied July 11, 1968.
John Martin Smith, of Auburn, and Stephen J. Williams, of Roanoke, for appellant.
*657 John J. Dillon, Attorney General, and Rex Phillip Killian, Deputy Attorney General, for appellee.
LEWIS, C.J.
This is an appeal from a conviction of the appellant by jury for the crime of Murder in the Second Degree. The appellant was legally separated from his wife and had been given custody of their children. On November 29, 1965, the children had been visiting with their mother, and their father came to take them home.
The appellant had been aware, for some time, that the victim and his wife had been having an illicit affair. He took his children home and left them with his mother. Then, he left again to go out to dinner. It was then approximately ten o'clock on the evening of the shooting. After eating, appellant drove past his wife's apartment where he observed the victim leaving and driving away. The appellant wished to talk to the decedent and, thereupon, followed him to his home. When the decedent got out of his car and started to walk up to his house, the appellant called to him and engaged him in conversation. The decedent began to walk toward the appellant who was still seated in his car. The appellant warned him not to come any closer as he had a loaded rifle. The evidence at this point is conflicting. The appellant states that the decedent was very close, suddenly grabbed the rifle, and pulled on it causing it to discharge. The State contends that the appellant shot the decedent before he grabbed the weapon. After the shooting, the appellant, realizing what had transpired, panicked and fled. Also, it is important to note that the murder weapon was never found.
In resolving this conflict in the evidence, the distance between the decedent and the appellant at the time the victim was shot is a very critical factor. If the victim was standing several feet away from the muzzle of the weapon when he was shot, he could not have grabbed it causing it to discharge. However, if it could be proven that he was standing next to the car when he was shot, it would give credit to the appellant's *658 story. Therefore, it is obvious to all concerned that the evidence introduced at trial bearing on this issue was very important; and, as one of his assigned errors, the appellant asks this Court to examine the expert testimony of one Kenneth Houck who had conducted some experiments regarding this point.
Simply stated, the State attempted to show that if the victim had been any closer than five (5) feet to the muzzle of the weapon when it was discharged, there would have been powder burns and residue on his clothing at the point of the projectile's entry. However, examination by police revealed no such burns or residue.
In examining this evidence we will start with the testimony itself. Set out herein are the pertinent excerpts from Mr. Houck's testimony.
Timely and stenuous objection was made to this testimony by the defense counsel which may be generally summarized into the statement that the experiment was not conducted in the same manner, nor under the same conditions, as the shooting occurred. He emphasizes that a different rifle was used in the experiment and the cartridges tested were not the same as those found in the car of the appellant at the time of his arrest. This difference in the cartridges is germane in that those used in the experiment were hand loaded, and those found in the car of the appellant were commercially loaded.
We wish to re-emphasize a portion of the expert's own testimony in saying that the specific distance between the muzzle of the weapon and that of the victim in which the victim may or may not receive powder burns is dependent in part upon (1) a given weapon, (2) the type of cartridge, (3) propellant within the cartridge, and (4) weight of the projectile itself.
This problem is not new to Indiana. In Thrawley v. State (1899), 153 Ind. 375, 55 N.E. 95, an expert testified against appellant's claim that the homicide occurred in a hand-to-hand combat, as
Looking to other jurisdictions, the case of Epperson v. Commonwealth (1929), 227 Ken. 404, 13 S.W.2d 247, from the Kentucky Court of Appeals is helpful. In this case the defendant had alleged that his wife had committed suicide; however, there was no evidence of the bullet passing through her clothing and no powder burns on her body or apparel. The Court stated:
Similarly the Supreme Court of Mississippi had the following to say in Done v. State (1947), 202 Miss. 418, 32 So. 2d 206, wherein the appellant, accused of shooting his wife, maintained *662 that a pistol had fallen out of the glove compartment of the car in which they were both riding and it accidentally discharged.
From these cases we must conclude that the testimony based on the experiment in the case at bar was erroneously admitted into evidence and was inconclusive. The murder weapon was never found, thereby necessitating the use of a "similar" weapon. However, in Thrawley v. State, supra, the weapon used for the experiment and the murder was the same. This is a very important factor in an experiment of this nature. Indeed, in expert Houck's own testimony he stated: "In the firing of any given firearm...." Notwithstanding the discrepancy of the weapons used, the cartridges used are disputed as well. It was not adequately proven at trial whether the victim was shot with the commercially-loaded or hand-loaded cartridges. The murder weapon had been borrowed by the appellant from a friend who also gave him a box of hand-loaded cartridges. When apprehended, *663 the appellant had a box of commercially-loaded shells in the trunk of his automobile, and at trial he stated that he believed a commercially-loaded shell was the one used in the shooting. The hand-loaded shells were the ones used in the experiment.
Other variables were mentioned as well, such as atmospheric conditions, relative conditions of the weapons, and the respective weights of the bullets, none of which were adequately provided for in the experiment.
The experiment in the case at bar did not conform to the standards as set out in Thrawley v. State, supra, nor even those set out in the testimony of expert Houck. Therefore, we are compelled to rule that it was prejudicial error to admit this into evidence, and a new trial is hereby ordered.
Arterburn, Hunter, Jackson and Mote, JJ., concur.
NOTE.  Reported in 236 N.E.2d 585.