Court Opinion

ID: 9721454
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 08:59:46.229804+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:26.000581
License: Public Domain

Robert W. Hansen, J.
(dissenting). Nearly twenty years ago, the defendant was found guilty of murder in the first degree. The jury found him guilty of the fatal strangling of a seventy-six-year-old woman. The trial court upheld that jury verdict and sentenced the defendant to life imprisonment. The principal issue on appeal is the sufficiency of the evidence to support that verdict. The test is “. . . whether the evidence, circumstantial or direct or a combination of both, adduced, believed and rationally considered by the jury, was sufficient to prove the defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. ...” 1 The decades-old transcript reveals that evidence, adduced by the state, which the jury was required to consider and entitled to believe, established that:
The defendant was a frequenter of the tavern owned and operated by the lady who was strangled. The defendant admitted that he had concocted, in order to impress the elderly lady, a false story of his being an aviator. Defendant stated that he had built up her hopes by stating he would fly her to Indiana. Defendant stated that he thereafter showed up at the tavern, wearing a bandage, pretending to have had an accident that would prevent his flying her to Indiana.
On the night of the murder the defendant appeared at the lady’s tavern at about midnight. Five customers who were in the tavern so testified, and the fact is not dis*119puted. The lady who was later killed immediately ignored the other customers and engaged in a quiet, private conversation for about fifteen minutes. The five tavern patrons so testified.
After midnight, the defendant left the tavern, whereupon the lady who was later slain appeared somewhat excited, and, even though it was before the closing hour, announced that she was closing the tavern and hurried the five other patrons out of the tavern. This was the testimony of the five patrons who were asked to leave so that the lady could close her tavern. Defendant admitted that he was the man in the tavern who had the conversartion with the victim of the slaying.
As the group of five patrons drove away, an cmtomo-bile was noticed by some of them, parked alongside the road, pointed toward the tavern, a man behind the wheel. This was testified to by those who made the observation. The defendant admitted that he had parked beside the road after leaving the tavern.
The seventy-six-year-old lady %oas murdered between the time she closed the tavern and fifteen hours thereafter. The doctor who performed the autopsy testified that the elderly lady had been battered about the face and head and strangled and that she had died at about 3:15 a. m. with a possible leeway of twelve hours in either direction. The testimony was that the murder was extremely bloody with bloodstains found on both the walls, floor and ceiling of the death room. The defendant’s wife testified that on the day after the murder she had scorched and then burned the shirt the defendant was wearing on the night of the murder. The defendant testified that on the day after the murder he removed and replaced the soles of the shoes he was wearing the night of the murder and threw the resoled shoes in his attic.
*120The defendant had the opportunity to commit the murder. Defendant’s testimony was that, after he left the tavern of the victim after midnight, he went to another tavern which he left at 1 a. m., arriving home at 2 a. m. He testified that this drive normally took twenty minutes, but on this occasion it took one hour. His wife testified that defendant arrived home at 1:45 a. m. to 2 a. m. However, a neighbor testified that, at 2 a. m., he had observed no car at the place where the defendant customarily parked, testimony which, believed by the jury, added an uncertain hour of returning home to the unexplained forty additional minutes en route. Additionally, the defendant testified that he did not go into the house when he returned home the night of the murder but, instead, slept in his car because it was a warm evening. Defendant’s wife testified that she did not hear the car being driven away, but, given the conflict between the testimony of the wife and neighbor as to time of arrival, the jury was not required to believe such testimony nor to find it fully negativing the possibility the car was driven away later in the early morning hours.
The defendant’s arms were scratched after the murder. The defendant gave various explanations from the witness stand as to how the scratches came about. To one inquiry he answered that the scratches on his arm were sustained while he was working on his job the day after the murder. To another inquiry in the same regard he stated the scratches were received by him while he was picking blueberries the day after the murder. On this point and throughout the trial, the defendant’s testimony was marked by variations and contradictions, a factor the jury was entitled to take into consideration in evaluating his testimony.
The defendant, stopping at the tavern two days after the murder and finding it closed, asked a neighbor to *121come over to the tavern before entering it. The defendant, according to his testimony, went with his wife to the tavern, found the tavern closed, went to the back and heard a noise and then secured the presence of a neighbor as a witness before proceeding further. It was his testimony that, because he had a criminal record, he did not want to check further unless a witness outside the family was present to also see what there was to be seen. The arranging for a witness before discovering what had gone wrong inside the closed tavern because of a prior involvement with the law is not unbelievable, but it is not the only inference that a reasonable person might draw from the reluctance to proceed, without an additional witness, to ascertain why the tavern was not open for business.
Pubic hair found on the bedspread where the victim’s body was discovered was identical with pubic hair of the defendant in medullation, pigmentation, color, size and degree of curl. The expert witness who compared the pubic hair of defendant with that found on the bedspread testified: “. . . I found hairs to be present in the debris recovered from the bedspread, at least one of which when compared with the aid of comparison microscope to be identical with respect to certain microscopic characteristics with hairs submitted as being pubic hair from Mr. Kanieski, state’s exhibit nine. These microscopic characteristics are the same as those I mentioned earlier, medullation, pigmentation, color, size and degree of curl. . . .”
Clothing fiber found on the rope with which the victim was strangled to death was identical with the fabric of trousers worn by defendant on the night of the murder in regard to type, color, size and degree of curl. The expert witness who compared the fiber in defendant’s trousers with that found on the death rope testified: “From the debris removed from the lacing and hemp *122twine in state’s exhibit twelve I found a dark reddish purple clothing fiber which possessed identical microscopic characteristics as there is present in the fabric of the trousers, state’s exhibit ten, and those characteristics which were used in the comparison of these fibers was the type, color, size and degree of curl.” Asked if the two compared fibers were identical in all these respects, the expert witness answered, “Yes, sir.”
Fragments of insulation material found on the bedspread where the body of the victim lay were found to be identical with fragments of insulation material removed from the trousers defendant wore on the night of the murder in respect to color, texture, hardness and chemical composition. The expert witness who compared the two sets of fragments testified, “As a part of the debris removed [from the defendant’s trousers] a very small, two very small fragments of insulation material were found to be present. The chemical nature of the material was calcium carbonate and mica was found to be present in one case and the mica was identified as being the biotite type. This material was examined chemically as I mentioned and compared chemically and microscopically with the insulation material which I have testified to as being removed from the debris from the bedspread, state’s exhibit eight. The material from the trousers was found to be identical with respect to color, texture, hardness and chemical composition and inclusions referring specifically to the biotite with the material recovered from the bedspread.” The witness then testified, “It is my opinion that the insulation material from the trousers and the insulation material from the bedspread could have had a common source.” Then asked, “In other words, at one time it could have been one piece, is that what you mean ... ?” the witness answered, “That is correct.” Asked whether the insulation material from defendant’s trousers was “iden*123tical in all respects” with the insulation material from the victim’s bedspread, the witness replied, “They were identical in the respects that I have mentioned.”
Was this evidence “. . . circumstantial or direct or a combination of both, adduced, believed and rationally considered by the jury . . . sufficient to prove the defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt?” 2 The writer has no hesitance in finding that it clearly was. As the majority opinion notes, the “. . . credibility of the witnesses and the weight of the evidence is for the trier of fact. ...” 3 This court, on appeal, is to “. . . view the evidence in the light most favorable to the finding. ...” 4 Reasonable inferences drawn from the evidence “. . . can support a finding of fact.” 5 If more than one reasonable inference can be drawn from the evidence, “. . . the inference which supports the finding is the one that must be adopted.” 6
While it is apparent that most of the evidence against the defendant is circumstantial, this court has stated correctly that “. . . Circumstantial evidence may be and often is stronger and as convincing as direct evidence.” 7 Here, buttressed by entirely reasonable inferences drawable from the chain of circumstantial evidence, it is a strong and satisfactory foundation for the jury verdict. While an appellate court “. . . cannot function as a trial court or as a jury,” 8 the writer finds no reason to disagree with a jury finding of guilt based on evidence, direct and circumstantial, that clearly “. . . taken together” is “. . . of a conclusive nature leading on the *124whole to a satisfactory conclusion and producing . . . a reasonable and moral certainty that the accused and no other person committed the offense charged . ...” 9 Holding the evidence sufficient to sustain the verdict and finding no merit in other issues raised on this appeal, the writer would affirm.
I am authorized to state that Mr. Justice Leo B. Hanley joins in this dissent.

 Curl v. State (1968), 40 Wis. 2d 474, 488, 489, 162 N. W. 2d 77, certiorari denied, 394 U. S. 1004, 89 Sup. Ct. 1601, 22 L. Ed. 2d 781.

 Id. at page 489.

 Bautista v. State (1971), 53 Wis. 2d 218, 223, 191 N. W. 2d 725.

 Id. at page 223.

 Id. at page 223.

 Id. at page 223.

 State v. Johnson (1960), 11 Wis. 2d 130, 134, 104 N. W. 2d 379.

 Id. at page 137.

 Id. at pages 136, 137.