Court Opinion

ID: 9617141
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:52:38.100634+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:04:06.060524
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE DAYIS:
(specially concurring).
I concur in the affirmance of the judgment of conviction below and the order of the district court which denied the appellant (hereafter defendant) a new trial. I reach that conclusion however by a different route than that which the chief justice takes in his opinion.
More specifically, I agree at the outset that upon this record the dying declaration made by the decedent Bishop was properly admitted over the only objection which counsel for the defendant interposed at the trial, and accordingly was competent evidence for the jury to consider. I concur here to the point that the district court cannot now be put in error for. not sustaining an objection to this evidence which counsel did not choose to make when the evidence was offered.
With this dying declaration properly before the trial court the evidence then for the state in my view is clearly sufficient to take any issues of fact in the record to the jury. Here I *37shall not elaborate upon the statement of the facts found in the opinion written by the chief justice. I shall content myself generally with the comment that the evidence including Bishop’s dying declaration, as I read it, raises issues of fact for the jury to resolve. Its verdict that the defendant is guilty of murder in the first degree is supported by substantial evidence, which the jury believed. The weight of that evidence is not against that verdict such that on that ground we should grant a new trial. Compare State v. Schoenborn, 55 Mont. 517, 520, 179, Pac. 294.
Therefore on this appeal we may not set that verdict aside, or reverse the order of the trial judge who approved that verdict by denying a new trial, unless there was error in law in sending the case to the jury, as the lower court did, upon the theory that they might find the defendant guilty of murder in the first degree, although not present, because he advised and encouraged, i. e., counseled and procured, the burning of his service station by “Turk” Freestone under such circumstances as to make out the crime of arson, and that in the perpetration of that crime the decedent Bishop was killed.
Again more specifically, the controlling inquiry here is whether the trial court correctly invoked and applied R.C.M. 1947, section 94-2503, to the facts of this case both in his rulings made throughout the course of the trial and as well upon instructions offered or given. I think he did.
First, I have no doubt there is substantial evidence in this record that Morran, although not present when his service station was burned, nevertheless, counseled or procured the burning of that building by “Turk” Freestone under such circumstances that the crime of arson in the second degree as defined by our statute, viz., R.C.M. 1947, section 94-503, was perpetrated. The circumstantial evidence before us aside from the dying declaration made by Bishop points directly to Morran as a principal in the commission of that crime. Standing alone that evidence is sufficient, I believe, to send the case to the jury upon the issue of the defendant’s guilt vel non of arson. *38But I need not rest upon my answer to this subordinate inquiry.
For the circumstances which weigh so heavily against Morran are supplemented and corroborated by the dying declaration which Bishop made, and which I have already said in my opinion was properly before the jury. Particularly in that declaration Bishop tells of overhearing Morran and Freestone on Sunday afternoon, June 19, 1955, when they were in the service station, plan the fire which Freestone was to set early the next morning. Despite the denials by the defendant that he had any connection with this plot, the jury upon the evidence before them resolved this issue against him. On the record before me then I may not overturn that finding.
In short, all the evidence, including Bishop’s dying statement, is clearly sufficient to show the defendant guilty of arson in the second degree as a principal in setting the fire which destroyed his service station on June 20, 1955. The one controlling question then which remains to be answered is this: Is the death of Bishop as the direct result of the burns which he received in that fire a homicide within the meaning of section 94-2503 of our Codes, which was committed in the perpetration of the arson of which on this record the defendant Morran stands rightly convicted? I think so.
There is no doubt again upon the evidence in the record wholly apart from Bishop’s dying declaration that he died as the result of burns received by him in the fire which destroyed Morran’s service station. Translated that evidence read with Bishop’s account of that fire makes it clear to me the jury was justified in finding that Bishop was killed in the perpetration of the arson which the defendant counseled and procured Freestone to commit. For the details of the cause of his death are furnished by Bishop in his dying statement.
There Bishop says he “went to the front of the station where he was again to stand jiggers in case someone came. ’ ’ Then he continues, after Freestone returned from the garage where he went to get two tires, he (Freestone) “stood and threw gasoline into the back room in the direction of the water heater, *39as directed.” This reference is to the directions which Bishop said he overheard Morran give Freestone when he (Bishop) was eavesdropping at the service station in the afternoon before. Finally he says here, “As Turk [Freestone] threw the gasoline on the fire there was a loud explosion.”
Again translated this evidence means that Freestone set the fire by throwing gasoline into the back room of the station where it exploded. In that fire Bishop was burned so badly that he died. For me we have here a case of a murder committed in the perpetration of an arson within the meaning of section 94-2503, which is clearly made out. If the jury believed the evidence, which the state’s case put before them as their verdict indicates they did, they could rationally come to no other conclusion than that the decedent Bishop was murdered in the perpetration by Freestone of the arson which the defendant Morran had counseled and procured Freestone to commit, and that Bishop’s death was a natural and probable consequence of the perpetration of that crime. Here it makes no difference that Bishop without the knowledge of Morran was an accomplice and not an innocent bystander. Freestone killed Bishop while burning Morran’s service station. This is enough on the facts of this case. Compare People v. Cabaltero, 31 Cal. App. (2d) 52, 56, 59, 87 Pac. (2d) 364.
For authority to sustain me at this point I need not go beyond the decisions in this court. See State v. Bolton, 65 Mont. 74, 212 Pac. 504. But I note in support of my view particularly People v. Michalow, 229 N.Y. 325, 128 N.E. 228; Commonwealth v. Devereaux, 256 Mass. 387, 152 N.E. 380; Warren on Homicide (per. ed.), Vol. 1, section 74, pages 326, 327. Consequently I think there is no need to turn to the California case of People v. Ferlin, 203 Cal. 587, 265 Pac. 230, and similar decisions. This line of authority is inapplicable to the facts which the record on this appeal brings here. I therefore express no opinion whether in another case I would adhere to the rule which they announce.