Court Opinion

ID: 9559123
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:23:02.210465+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:09:23.538147
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE ANDERSON,
(specially concurring).
I agree with the result that the cause should be reversed but disagree with the reasons given for such result.
This is an appeal from a judgment of conviction entered on a jury’s verdict of murder in the second degree. An appeal from a former judgment of conviction arising out of the same homicide is found in State v. Storm, 125 Mont. 346, 238 Pac. (2d) 1161.
I did not participate in the decision rendered in State v. Storm, supra, and therefore the conclusions I have reached here are based solely upon a comprehensive comparison of the two records in both cases and not upon any of the conferences of the justices had in connection with the first decision.
The evidence submitted to the jury in the instant case is substantially the same as the evidence submitted in the earlier case and no useful purpose would be served if it were again spelled out here. The only differences are: (1) In the trial, the appeal from which is now before us, certain inadmissible evidence, condemned in the former appeal, was not again received; (2) the testimony of a witness Hay was introduced by reading to the jury the record of his testimony given in the former trial. Witness Hay could not be found and therefore was not produced at the second trial.
There was no new evidence introduced in the instant case which in any way tended to strengthen the case of the State of Montana against the defendant. The fact is, that by omitting *421those matters which were determined by this court to be objectionable, the case of the state was substantially weakened. Nonetheless, the cause ivas tried for a second time and the jury in in the second trial returned a verdict of guilty of murder in the second degree.
In the opinion of this court on the former appeal in State v. Storm, supra, the use of bloodhounds and other testimony was held to be inadmissible and in passing upon all the evidence there introduced, this court said, 125 Mont, at page 375, 238 Pac. (2d) at page 1176: “To place the accused at the scene of the crime the state relied upon the so-called ‘bloodhound testimony.’ It alone placed him there.” Emphasis supplied.
As to the evidence upon which the instant determination was made, it is claimed that the determination made in State v. Storm, supra, became the law of the case.
R. C. M. 1947, sec. 94-2510, provides: “No person can be convicted of murder or manslaughter unless the death of the person, alleged to have been killed, j and the fact of the killing by the defendant as alleged, are established as independent acts; the former by direct proof, and the latter beyond a reasonable doubt.”
To sustain a conviction for murder in this state proof of the fact of the death alone is not sufficient. It must also affirmatively appear from the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that such death was due to the unlawful and felonious act of the defendant. State v. Riggs, 61 Mont. 25, 201 Pac. 272.
It is properly urged by the accused that on the record before this court now the above conclusion became the law of the ease on retrial and that it was incumbent upon the state to offer evidence in addition to that offered in the first trial tending to prove that the defendant was present at the time when and the place where the crime was committed, and by reason of the failure to prove additional facts the defendant’s motions for dismissal and a directed verdict should have been granted.
Notwithstanding the view stated by Mr. Justice Angstman in his dissent, the accused properly raised the question of law in *422the first trial as to whether or not there was legal, competent evidence which tended to prove that he was present at the time or place where he could have committed the crime with which he is charged and this court passed squarely upon the issue so raised.
It is my judgment that the language quoted above became the law of the case and it was the duty of the county attorney to either ask leave to dismiss the cause or to proceed to a new trial only upon evidence in addition to that which was adduced at the first trial. He chose to do neither. Compare District of Columbia v. Huffman, D. C. Mun. App., 42 A. (2d) 502.
It is an inflexible rule that our decision on a former appeal, whether right or wrong, is binding alike on the parties and the courts in the same, action. State v. Gunn, 89 Mont. 453, 300 Pac. 212; Libin v. Huffine, 124 Mont. 361, 224 Pac. (2d) 144; Little v. Little, 125 Mont. 278, 259 Pac. (2d) 343.