Opinion ID: 2039996
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: sufficiency of the evidence

Text: The defendant argues that the jury's verdict of guilty is fatally inconsistent with constitutional guaranties of due process in that it is based upon evidence insufficient to support a conviction under the beyond a reasonable doubt standard constitutionally mandated for all criminal proceedings. We disagree. The defendant was convicted of the first-degree murder of his wife, Dorthy Wyss, which occurred on November 17, 1981, in their Mount Horeb home. At trial, the State produced no direct evidence of Wyss' guilt, but relied solely upon circumstantial evidence. A finding of guilty may rest upon evidence that is entirely circumstantial. Struzik v. State, 90 Wis. 2d 357, 363, 279 N.W.2d 922 (1979). In fact, this court has noted that: [o]ften times circumstantial evidence is stronger and more satisfactory than direct evidence. Clark v. State, 62 Wis. 2d 194, 197, 214 N.W. 450 (1974). Regardless of whether the evidence is direct or circumstantial, it must be sufficiently strong and convincing to establish the facts beyond a reasonable doubt in the mind of the triers of facts. State v. Lund, 99 Wis. 2d 152, 161, 298 N.W.2d 533 (1980). In order for circumstantial evidence to meet this demanding beyond a reasonable doubt standard, the trier of fact must be convinced that the evidence is sufficiently strong to exclude to a moral certainty every reasonable hypothesis of innocence. Id. This court has explained the proper use of circumstantial evidence by a jury as follows: [W]hen circumstantial evidence is relied upon, this evidence must be sufficiently strong to exclude every reasonable hypothesis of innocence. This does not mean that, if any of the evidence brought forth at trial suggests innocence, the jury cannot find the defendant guilty. The function of the jury is to decide which evidence is credible and which is not, and how conflicts in the evidence are to be resolved. The jury can thus, within the bounds of reason, reject testimony suggestive of innocence. The rule that the circumstantial evidence must exclude every reasonable theory of innocence refers to the evidence which the jury could have believed and relied upon to support its verdict. Peters v. State, 70 Wis. 2d 22, 34, 233 N.W.2d 420 (1975). (Footnotes omitted.) In reviewing the record to determine whether sufficient evidence was presented to warrant a conviction, this court must consider the evidence in a manner that is most favorable to the state. State v. Stanfield, 105 Wis. 2d 553, 563-64, 314 N.W.2d 339 (1982). We have stated that the following test is the appropriate one for a reviewing court to apply when the defendant challenges the sufficiency of the evidence: `The test is not whether this court is convinced of the defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, but whether this court can conclude that the trier of fact could, acting reasonably, be convinced to the required degree of certitude by the evidence which it had a right to believe and accept as true. Reversal is only required when the evidence considered most favorably to the state and the conviction is so insufficient in probative value and force that it can be said as a matter of law that no trier of facts acting reasonably could be convinced to that degree of certitude which the law defines as `beyond a reasonable doubt.' (citations omitted). Id. at 564, quoting State v. Burkman, 96 Wis. 2d 630, 643, 292 N.W.2d 641 (1980). When the conviction is based solely upon circumstantial evidence, as in the case presently before us, this court must uphold the conviction if a reasonable trier of fact could be convinced that the evidence is strong enough to exclude to a moral certainty every reasonable hypothesis of innocence. Stanfield at 564; Frankovis v. State, 94 Wis. 2d 141, 148, 287 N.W.2d 791 (1980). The credibility of the witnesses, including the defendant's, and the weight of the evidence, is exclusively for the trier of fact. Whitaker v. State, 83 Wis. 2d 368, 377, 265 N.W.2d 575 (1978). After reviewing the record, we conclude that the evidence presented was sufficient to convince the jury, to a moral certainty, that there was no reasonable hypothesis of the defendant's innocence. Thus, the evidence was sufficient to convince a reasonable jury beyond a reasonable doubt that Wyss was guilty of the first-degree murder of his wife, Dorthy Wyss. The facts upon which we base this conclusion are as follows: About 6:00 p.m. on November 17, 1981, John Wyss found his mother, Dorthy Wyss, lying dead on the floor in the basement recreation room of the Wyss' Mount Horeb home. A pathologist determined that she had died between 2 a.m. and 12:00 noon on November 17 from loss of blood due to multiple knife wounds. He testified that her throat had been slashed from ear to ear down to the vertebra, severing the major blood vessels, the arteries and veins on both sides. Death was nearly instantaneous after receiving this wound. There were 33 stab and cut wounds in the area of the upper chest, and 12-20 slash wounds on the neck. There was a deep sawing groove in one of the 3 exposed vertebra. The fingers of both her left and right hands had at least two slash wounds which the pathologist classified as defensive wounds. He testified that the defensive wounds were probably received prior to the time Dorthy Wyss' throat was slashed. He further testified that all the wounds were somewhat jagged and irregular, and were consistent with the type of wounds a dull serrated kitchen knife would produce. Such a knife, with a blade of approximately 4½ inches, was found partially obscured beneath Dorthy Wyss' right arm. The deep sawing groove in the fourth cervical vertebra matched the serrated edge of this knife. Blood on the knife was consistent with that of the victim's. Four people were in the Wyss home on the night of Dorthy Wyss' murder: the defendant, Dorthy Wyss, and their two children, JoReen Wyss (age 13) and John Wyss (age 17). The jury heard evidence that the defendant attended a basketball game the night of November 16 while Dorthy Wyss was at various bars in Mt. Horeb. A friend of Dorthy Wyss', with whom she had been drinking, testified that she brought Dorthy Wyss home about 1:00 a.m. A chemist with the State Crime Laboratory testified that Dorthy Wyss' blood alcohol level was 0.21 percent. The defendant testified that he returned home about 9:45 p.m., watched television and went to sleep in the ground floor bedroom which he shared with his wife. He testified that he did not sleep well that night and awoke at approximately 1:00 a.m. when he heard Dorthy Wyss come home. He testified that immediately after she came home, he heard her vomiting in the bathroom. He went back to sleep. He awoke later and heard her vomiting in the basement recreation room. He testified that it was not unusual for her to sleep in the recreation room on a sleeping couch. He arose, cleaned the kitchen at approximately 2:20 a.m., went back to bed, read awhile and fell asleep. He got up at 4:30 a.m. and went to work at 5:00 a.m. at the cheese factory which he managed. He worked the entire day, returned home that evening, and started to prepare dinner. It was only after his son John discovered his mother in the basement that the defendant said he learned his wife had been killed. He denied killing her. John, a high school student, testified that he went to sleep about 9:00 p.m. He awoke sometime between 2:00 a.m. and 3:00 a.m. when he heard a single dull or deadened scream by his mother coming from the basement recreation room. He testified he had never heard his mother scream like that before. He did not investigate because, he testified, it was none of his business, and if his mother was arguing with the defendant there might be a fight. He stayed awake for a few minutes and went back to sleep. He got up about 7:30 a.m. and left for school about 8:00 a.m. John testified that when he came home from school the evening of November 17, his father asked him if he had heard his mother the previous night. John responded that he had not. John testified that the defendant told him that she had a real doozie when she came home. After the defendant learned from the police that John had heard a scream, the defendant asked John if it could have been noise from the ice machine in the refrigerator that he had heard rather than a scream. John responded that it was not the machine. The defendant's testimony contains no reference whatsoever to a scream. The only sound the defendant testified he heard his wife make, coming from the basement recreation room at about the time John heard the scream, was a retching noise, vomiting. The defendant stated that sound carried fairly easily from the recreation room in which Dorthy Wyss was killed to their bedroom and to John's bedroom because of a register running under the ceiling of the recreation room to those two bedrooms. He testified that we used to always say, why the hell did they put that damn thing in because every darn sound could be heard from that rec room. The knife found partially beneath Dorthy Wyss' right arm was described by the defendant as his favorite knife. Wyss testified that the last time he saw this knife was when he had left for the basketball game on the evening of the murder and that it was on the kitchen counter at that time. He stated that he had cleaned the kitchen at 2:20 a.m. and was certain the knife was not there. He also testified that he had checked the kitchen area again in the morning before he left for work [a]nd if there was anything still out,I turned the dishwasher on and went to work. JoReen testified that she heard nothing after she went to bed the night of November 16. She awoke about 7:30 a.m. and left for school about 8:00 a.m. The jury heard testimony that the neighbors living across the street had overheard numerous arguments between the Wysses, sometimes continuing until 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning. In March, 1981, Dorthy fled to her daughter's house several doors away, stating that if she didn't get out he [the defendant] was gonna kill her. She spent the night in a local motel. In June, 1981, Dorthy told a psychiatrist whom she had been seeing professionally since January 30, 1981, that she was living in fear of her husband, that she felt trapped and resentful in her marriage and that something had to be done about it. After the murder, a deputy sheriff asked the defendant whether he had ever threatened his wife. He responded by saying, I told her that if she didn't clean up her act, she would find her throat slit. The defendant, however, testified that he made this statement in reference to the danger Dorthy Wyss faced from her association with criminal drug dealers and was one of warning, not threat. Another daughter of the defendant, Jackie Amble, testified that shortly after Dorthy Wyss' body was discovered and while Wyss was distraught, she heard him say, Why did you get drunk? Why did you make me mad at you? She testified that he just kind of kept saying why, why. When questioned by deputies regarding problems in his marriage, Wyss described himself as extremely jealous. He said that his wife liked to go out and be with people in bars and often would flaunt this by bringing guys home. . . . He told detective Lathrop that her running around and being gone bothered him. Lathrop testified that Wyss told him that if she was loud enough when she came home to the point where he was angered, he would get up and often it would lead to an argument between himself and Dorthy. Wyss told Lathrop that this occurred after one or both of them had been drinking. The defendant testified that there would be arguments after she went uptown and got back in the evenings also. Other facts pertinent to our conclusion that the evidence was sufficient to support the verdict appear later in this section. The evidence in this case is entirely circumstantial. In order for this circumstantial evidence to meet the demanding beyond a reasonable doubt standard, the evidence must be sufficiently strong to exclude to a moral certainty every reasonable hypothesis of innocence. The defendant argues that there is a reasonable hypothesis that supports his innocence: the hypothesis that someone else killed his wife between the hours of 2:00 a.m. and 12:00 noon. Because there is no suggestion in this record or in the defendant's argument that the someone else may have been the children, John or JoReen, the someone else suggested by the defendant would have to have been an unknown intruder. We find that a jury could reasonably conclude that the evidence was sufficiently strong to exclude to a moral certainty every reasonable hypothesis of innocence for a number of reasons. The motive Wyss suggests for his wife's murder i.e. the victim's alleged drug involvement, is not supported by the evidence or by the manner in which the murder was carried out. Even assuming some motive existed for someone other than Wyss to have murdered Dorthy, a jury could reasonably conclude that the hypothesis that an unknown intruder committed this murder in the three time frames in which it could have occurred has no basis in the record. Lastly, the physical evidence that the defendant points to as supporting his hypothesis is so speculative and so totally inconclusive that a jury could reasonably give it no weight. These reasons are more fully examined below.
The defendant implies that Dorthy Wyss was involved with disreputable drug dealers and suggests this as a motive for her murder. Whatever the motive, the evidence strongly suggests, and a jury could reasonably conclude, that if there was an unknown intruder, he became motivated to kill Dorthy Wyss only after he entered the home. It cannot be seriously argued that an unknown intruder came into the house prepared to kill: a person bent on murder would have come much better prepared, and certainly would not have depended on a dull serrated knife to accomplish his planned murder. Further, this hypothesis falls short because Wyss failed to demonstrate that drugs would have motivated an intruder to kill her after he entered the home. The extent, if any, of the victim's drug use or involvement with drug dealers was never shown. Even if the defendant's statement with respect to a baggie of marijuana and some pills missing from the victim's purse is true, it cannot be seriously suggested that a desire to take these items prompted this murder, particularly in the manner in which the murder was carried out. Even assuming a motive other than one relating to drugs existed for killing the victim (and there is none suggested in this record), a jury could reasonably find that it is unreasonable to believe that an unknown intruder would have entered the Wyss home without a plan of murder, would have become motivated to kill, and would have chosen, much less have found, this particular white handled steak knife with a dull blade of about 4½ inches long to accomplish his ends. The defendant himself testified that this knife was not on the counter when he had cleaned up the kitchen and put the dishes in the dishwasher at 2:20 a.m.
Even assuming some motive existed for Dorthy Wyss' murder by someone other than Wyss, a jury could reasonably conclude that the hypothesis that an unknown intruder murdered Dorthy Wyss in the three time frames in which it would have to have occurred has no basis in this record. The pathologist testified that the murder occurred between 2:00 a.m. and 12:00 noon on November 17, 1981. The murder could not have occurred between 4:30 a.m. and 5:00 a.m. if the jury accepted the defendant's testimony that he got up at 4:30 a.m. and left for work at 5:00 a.m. because clearly he would have heard something. For the same reason, the murder also could not have occurred between 7:30 a.m. and 8:00 a.m. because that was the time the children got up and left for school. Thus, in examining the defendant's hypothesis that an unknown intruder came into his house sometime between 2:00 a.m. and 12:00 noon and killed his wife, we must look at three time frames in which that hypothesis could have occurred: 1) Between 8:00 a.m. and 12:00 noon when no one other than Dorthy was home; 2) Between 5:00 a.m. and 7:30 a.m. when the children were asleep and the defendant was at work; and 3) Between 2:00 a.m. and 4:30 a.m. when everyone was home.
The evidence strongly suggests and the jury could have reasonably concluded that Dorthy Wyss was dead before the children left for school at 8:00 a.m. The pathologist testified that the death was much more likely to have occurred between 2:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. than between 6:00 a.m. and noon. That testimony is corroborated by two other pieces of evidence. Dorthy Wyss had a hair appointment for 8:30 a.m. that day. She had personally made that appointment at 4:00 p.m. the previous day. She had averaged 2-3 appointments a month at that hairdresser's shop since September of 1980. The hairdresser testified it was Dorthy Wyss' practice to be timely for her appointments. The hairdresser told Dorthy when she made the appointment the previous day that the 17th was her day off but that she would come on my day off to do it for her but that she would prefer to do it early in the day so she could have the rest of the day off. It is highly unlikely that Dorthy Wyss would have missed that appointment. The hairdresser also testified that when Dorthy Wyss failed to appear, she tried calling the Wyss home at 8:45 a.m. and twice more that morning but no one answered. Beth Meyer, a receptionist at the Dean Clinic, testified that on the morning of November 17, she called the Wyss home between 8:30 and 9:00 a.m. to set up an appointment. She received no answer. Thereafter she tried to telephone Dorthy Wyss' home at intervals of every 45 minutes to an hour until about 5:00 p.m. but received no answer. We find that a jury could reasonably conclude that the evidence was sufficiently strong to exclude to a moral certainty the hypothesis that an unknown intruder killed Dorthy Wyss between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 12:00 noon.
A jury could find it equally unreasonable to believe that an unknown intruder committed this murder between 5:00 a.m. and 7:30 a.m. while the children were asleep. Neither John nor JoReen heard a sound in the house during those early morning hours and were not awakened. The evidence strongly suggests this was a murder done in a raging frenzy. The victim's throat was slashed from ear to ear, there were 33 stab/cut wounds and 12-20 slash wounds; and there was an attempt made to separate the head from the body by sawing at the vertebra after the victim was already dead or within moments of being dead. The defensive wounds on Dorthy Wyss' hands indicate that she put up a struggle. In order for this murder to have occurred between 5:00 a.m. and 7:30 a.m., the intruder would have had to come into a strange house in a darkened and semi-darkened condition, search the house for Dorthy Wyss, become sufficiently motivated to kill her, search the house for the white-handled steak knife, kill her in a raging frenzy while she attempted to defend herself, and have done all this without waking the children. We find that a jury could reasonably conclude that the evidence was sufficiently strong to exclude to a moral certainty the hypothesis that an unknown intruder killed Dorthy Wyss between the hours of 5:00 a.m. and 7:30 a.m.
There is strong evidence from which the jury could reasonably conclude that this is the time frame in which Dorthy Wyss was killed. John Wyss testified he heard his mother scream some time between 2:00 a.m. and 3:00 a.m. It was a dull, deadened scream; he had never heard his mother scream like that before. The pathologist testified it was much more likely that the murder occurred between 2:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. rather than between 6:00 a.m. and 12:00 noon. Dorthy failed to keep a hair appointment at 8:30 a.m. The telephone was not answered that morning. In order for an unknown intruder to have killed Dorthy Wyss between 2:00 a.m. and 4:30 a.m., the intruder would have had to enter a strange house at night in a darkened condition, search the house for Dorthy, become sufficiently motivated to kill her, search the house for the white-handled steak knife, kill her in a raging frenzy while she attempted to defend herself, and have done all this without the defendant being aware of it. The defendant himself testified that he was not sleeping well that night. He testified that sound carried fairly easily from the recreation room to his bedroom. The defendant testified that he got up a number of times during the night. He heard Dorthy Wyss vomiting. His testimony is silent with respect to any scream. That the defendant heard Dorthy Wyss vomiting but did not hear anything else is not believable. The defendant himself testified that every darn sound could be heard from that rec room in his bedroom. This murder occurred in the rec room. We find that a jury could reasonably conclude that the evidence was sufficiently strong to exclude to a moral certainty the hypothesis that an unknown intruder killed Dorthy Wyss between the hours of 2:00 a.m. and 4:30 a.m. Lastly, in support of his hypothesis that an unknown intruder murdered his wife, Wyss emphasizes that no significant items of evidence implicate him. Further, he argues that certain pieces of physical evidence affirmatively indicate the presence of an unknown intruder. We find no merit in either argument. The defendant emphasizes that no significant items of physical evidence implicate him. The State found no fingerprint or fingernail scrapings incriminating him. No bloodstains or spots were found on his person or clothing. Nevertheless, the jury had ample evidence before it to conclude, as they obviously did, that the defendant had time to clean himself at his home or his workplace and could have destroyed incriminating items of clothing he might have been wearing. The record does not indicate what, if any, bed clothes the defendant wore when he went to bed that night. If there were any clothes to destroy, the cheese factory maintained an incinerator which burned almost constantly and which was readily accessible to where the defendant parked his car. The defendant points to certain pieces of evidence as supporting his theory that an unknown intruder killed Dorthy: 1) In his brief, defendant argues [t]hey also found a bloody doorknob, leading to the basement from the garage. . . . Blood analyses determined that the blood on the doorknob was of human origin, but of an unidentified person. Although a reader might infer from the defendant's statement that the blood on the doorknob was from someone other than Dorthy Wyss or the defendant (but of an unidentified person), the record indicates that the lab technician was unable to type the blood at all due to conditions beyond her control. Thus, although the blood was of human origin, it could have been anyone's including Dorthy Wyss' or the defendant's. (The doorknob in question was on the side of the door leading from the basement to the garage, not from the garage to the basement.) 2) The defendant also argues, in further support of his unknown intruder hypothesis, that [h]airs were retrieved. . . from her right hand and from the coroner's body bag. Two hairs from the body bag and one hair from the victim's hand were not identifiable as being from the victim, the defendant or the two Wyss children living at home. As to these two pieces of evidence, the record indicates the following: a) Hairs from the victim's right hand: of the six hairs stuck to the hand of Dorthy Wyss from the blood, one hair was not consistent with that of the defendant or Dorthy Wyss; one hair was not suitable for comparison; four hairs were similar to the hair of Dorthy Wyss. By the word similar, the Wisconsin State Crime Laboratory analyst indicated hairs (that) are consistent in the microscopic characteristics observed, and therefore could have originated from a common source. b) Hairs from the coroner's body bag: of the five hairs obtained from the body bag, the state crime laboratory analyst testified that one hair was similar to the defendant's hair; two hairs were not similar to that of the defendant, Dorthy Wyss, or of the two children; and, although the record does not state it with specificity, the remaining two hairs were similar to Dorthy Wyss' hair. (There were some hairs that were similar in the general appearance with thefrom the body bag with the standard [Dorthy Wyss'] head hair.) The analyst testified that [i]t's highly likely that you would find [hair from] people living within the household and anyone else that would have visited the house or come in contact with her. Thus, that a hair from a person who was not a member of the family was found stuck to Dorthy's hand, and that two hairs that fell from the body bag used to transport the victim's body to the morgue were not from a member of the family is totally inconclusive. No evidence showed that only the family used the recreation room. The victim was lying on the floor in a pool of blood. Any hairs previously left on the floor by visitors to the Wyss home could easily have attached themselves to her bloodied clothing or hand. This evidence, which the defendant points to in support of his unknown intruder theory, is so speculative and so inconclusive that a reasonable jury could give it no weight. Given all of this evidence and the inferences to be drawn from itthe extremely jealous nature of the defendant, that fights between the defendant and his wife were frequently precipitated by drinking after she went uptown and got back in the evenings, his statement a year previous that someday she would find her throat slit, his distraught statements overheard by his daughter shortly after Dorthy's body was discovered, Why did you get drunk? Why did you make me mad at you? . . . why, whywe conclude that the evidence in this record is strong enough for a jury to exclude to a moral certainty every reasonable hypothesis of innocence.