Court Opinion

ID: 9535233
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:47:04.985975+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:33:11.897708
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Day
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I concur with the remand of the majority opinion concerning the resentencing of the defendant because of the double sentencing for a single transaction. However, I would not have arrived at that question in this case because I dissent from the majority opinion holding that the evidence was sufficient to convict the defendant.
Maynes, when arrested, may have been a prime suspect, but never in my experience have I read a case in which even most rudimentary police work was lacking, at least in the proof offered by the prosecution. The only evidence in this record is that Maynes was found attempting to hide under a porch several blocks from the scene of the burglary more than an hour or so after it had occurred. The defendant was never identified as *199being- one of the two burglars. He was not placed by-anybody at the scene of the crime. Any connection with the other defendant Maes was not established. An automobile 1-eft at the scene of the crime and in which the clothes taken from the Bernard’s store were placed and abandoned by flight, was not connected with the defendant. One of the pursuing merchant police was not permitted to conjecture that the person fleeing from him had actually been struck by a bullet from his gun, so there was no evidence before the jury that the fleeing person was shot. There was evidence that the one in flight- fell and that at the point where he fell there -was blood. How great was the quantity of blood was not established. Whether it could have been made by the person falling cutting his knee in the fall is equally plausible. In any event no blood samples were taken from the place where the fleeing burglar was said to have fallen to compare it with anyone later apprehended. The meager evidence produced did establish that defendant had blood on his shoulder. The nature of the wound from which the blood flowed was never established. If there was a bullet wound there must have been someone to establish that, but no such evidence was produced. If there was a bullet either the projectile went completely through the defendant’s body or it was lodged in it. But, there was no -evidence of him having a pistol-shot wound. If the bullet was removed from the defendant it could have been compared with the pistol from which the shot was fired at the fleeing suspect. This was not done. The nature of the hole in the jacket, whether it could have been caused by a bullet or was a tear on a nail or caused by some other instrumentality, was never established. In short, the gap between placing this defendant at the scene of the burglary and his final conviction is so wide one could drive the whole police squad through it. There certainly was no proof sufficient to overcome the presumption of innocence accorded every defendant. Suspicion and conjecture should never take the place of the *200proof beyond a reasonable doubt required in a criminal case.
Mr. Justice Groves authorizes me to state that he joins in the dissent. He has expressed his own special concurrence.