Court Opinion

ID: 9530540
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:00:49.476404+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:09.023242
License: Public Domain

On Petition for Rehearing
Buchanan, J.
In addition to other evidence “substantially” supporting McAllister’s conviction, the State makes reference in its Petition for Rehearing to “his surveillance of the house during the day . . .” This is inaccurate.
The record reveals no basis even for an inference that *650McAllister placed his estranged wife’s home under surveillance the day of the fire, or prior thereto.
According to his wife’s testimony, McAllister had insisted on taking her to and from work himself and had frequently done so in the past. After she stopped this practice he continued to come to the house to take her to work but she would leave before he got there.
Julia Spann, Mrs. McAllister’s sister who lived with her, testified to the same effect. While she was home on the day of the fire about five o’clock P.M., McAllister left a car for his wife to use to go to church . . . and departed. The fire did not occur until some four and a half hours later.
Our opinion stressed that unlike other arson convictions, there was no substantial evidence of McAllister’s presence at the scene of the fire . . . only a chain of circumstantial evidence indicating he could have set the fire. In Majors v. State (1969), 252 Ind. 672, 251 N.E.2d 571, cited by the State, the defendant was seen by a witness walking toward the house shortly before it burned and was present during the fire, even threatening to also burn the house of the witness. The defendant’s presence at the fire was testified to by a co-conspirator in Hancock v. State (1971), 256 Ind. 697, 271 N.E.2d 731, another case cited by the State.
The Petition for Rehearing is denied.
Sullivan, P.J. and White, J., concur.
Note. — Reported at 319 N.E.2d 866.