Case Name: The State v. Daniel Miller (alias Daniel Redden), George Henry Hutt, Julia Hutt and James Johnson
Court: Delaware Court of Oyer and Terminer
Jurisdiction: Delaware
Decision Date: 1892-05-31
Citations: 9 Houst. 564
Docket Number: 
Parties: The State v. Daniel Miller (alias Daniel Redden), George Henry Hutt, Julia Hutt and James Johnson.
Judges: 
Reporter: Delaware Reports
Volume: 14
Pages: 564–582

Head Matter:
The State v. Daniel Miller (alias Daniel Redden), George Henry Hutt, Julia Hutt and James Johnson.
Murder—Evidence of Quilt—Confessions—Accomplices—Expert Witnesses.
Where a homicide has been committed, all the parties who were aiding arid assisting in the assault are equally guilty with the one who inflicted the fatal Wounds.
Every man is presumed to intend the ordinary and natural consequences rf his own acts. And where the killing is shown, unaccompanied by circuí istances of justification, excuse or mitigation, malice is presumed and the offence is murder..
A jury ought not to convict of murder unless the dead hody be seen and identified, or unless the circumstances be such as to leave no reasonable doubt rf the fact.
As this court has heretofore announced, the established rule on the subject is this : Where the evidence is circumstantial, the jury must be fully satisfied, not only that the circumstances proved are consistent with the prisoner’s having committed the act charged as constituting the crime, hut they must also be likewise satisfied that the facts are such as to be inconsistent with any other rational conclusion than that the prisoner was the guilty party.
Whenever the guilt of the prisoner appears to the jury to be doubtful, the absence of any testimony in proof of a motive for the commission of the crime charged is a circumstance which the jury may consider in favor of the prisoner’s innocence ; but where the proof of guilt is satisfactory to the. jury the absence of proof of motive is immaterial.
Evidence of confessions of guilt made by the prisoner must be received with great caution by the jury, and may be accepted or rejected, in part or in toio by the jury, as any other evidence.
The testimony of expert witnesses as to blood stains ascertained by chemical or micro scopic examination, must be received with great caution in homicidal cases, and valued according to the learning and skill of the expert and the nature of the* * investigation, and be received or rejected as any other testimony.
The testimony of detectives, police officers and relatives of accused persons should be cautiously scrutinized and carefully viewed in connection with all the circumstances proven.
(New Castle,
May 31, 1892.)
Indictment for murder ot .the first degree, for the felonious killing of one Noah Benson, a colored man, living at Delaware City in said County, whose headless body was taken from the basin of the Delaware and Chesapeake Canal" at that place on the morning of December 26, 1891.
The facts proved at the trial show that the deceased when last seen alive was in the company of the defendants on the evening of Thanksgiving Day, 1891, going in the direction of the house of George Henry Hutt and about a square therefrom; that one of the defendants, Daniel Miller, on Friday following Thanksgiving Day came to the house of a witness wearing a thin gauze shirt, and when asked why he was so dressed, said: “ I was in that mob Thursday night and they cut my shirt, and it was so bloody, I pulled it off and threw it away.” When asked if he had cut anybody, Miller made no reply; but afterwards asked for three matches and the privilege of going up stairs. When this was refused, “he commenced walking the floor and cursing and his talk was about ‘ cutting the damned nigger to death.’ ” That certain bloody linen was found in the house of George Henry Hutt, in said town, consisting of a pillow case, waistband of drawers, etc.; and that blood was found upon the shirt of the defendant Johnson after he was arrested—all of which blood stains after being subjected to microscopic examination and measurement by the celebrated expert upon that subject, Dr. Henry F. Formad of Philadelphia, were pronounced by him to be consistent with human blood. A broad-bladed pocket knife, apparently bloody, and about eight inches long was also found in the Hutt domicile. A button found upon said waistband of drawers was identified by a witness as one which she had given the deceased to sew upon his said garment.
Dr. Joseph R. Smith, the physician who examined the body at the time of its discovery, testified that there was a wound found above the right nipple pointing up under the arm into the shoulder joint, severing the auxiliary artery, which wound was, in his opinion, sufficient to produce death, and that from the appearance of the trunk, the head might have been severed by an ordinary meat axe; that deceased, in his opinion, did not come to his death by drowning, for the reason that his lungs were not filled witji water, which would have been the case had he died from this cause.
The body found in the canal was identified as that of Benson by a number of witnesses who testified that it was about the same size as Benson’s body, full-chested and well developed like his.
Certain conversations of the defendants soto after arrest Overheard by an “ Every Evening ” reporter, were testified to by him as tending to show guilty knowledge of the crime. |
The defence was an alibi; and testimony was adduced in explanation of the manner in which the garments in question became bloody, tending to show that it had no connection with the crime in question.
At the conclusion of the State’s testimony, Cooper, for defendants, moved that the Court instruct the jury to bring in a verdict of not guilty upon two grounds: contending first, that the corpus delicti had not been proved; and second, that there had been a failure to prove venue—that there was no proof that deceased was killed in this State or in New Castle County.

Opinion:
Grubb, J:
In regard to whether there is sufficient evidence of the corpus delicti to go before the jury; viz., that Noa i Benson is dead and that his death was criminally caused, prior to the date laid in this indictment, or on or about the 26th of November, 1891,—the Court are unanimously of the opinion that we should leave that to the jury to decide, upon all the evidence before! them.
As to the question of venue, the State is bound to show to the jury either by direct testimony or by testimony from which the jury may infer it beyond a reasonable doubt, that the crime was committed in this County. At this stage of the case you ask the Court to say from the circumstances already before the jury, that there is not sufficient evidence of the venue to allow this case to go to the jury. A majority of the Court think that this should be decided by the jury and not by the Court, and therefore decline to take the question of venue from the jury. It is for them to say whether the circumstances in this case are sufficient to show that the crime was committed, in New Castle County.
John J. Ntcholson, Attorney General, and Branch Ii. Giles, Deputy Attorney General, for the State.
Jeter L. Cooper, Jr., for the prisoner.