Court Opinion

ID: 9792908
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:39:08.70059+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:01:36.108546
License: Public Domain

EDMONDS, J., Dissenting.
Considering the great mass of substantial evidence pointing unerringly to appellant as the perpetrator of the cunningly conceived but awkwardly executed murder of John Kmetz, I cannot justify on any logical or rational basis the labored effort of the majority opinion to belittle the testimony which connects Albertson with the commission of the crime.
The fact that evidence is circumstantial does not detract from its probative value. The law makes no distinction between circumstantial and direct evidence. Whether the evidence is of the one kind or the other, the same degree of proof is required and the final test of its sufficiency is the same: does the whole evidence together satisfy the minds of the jurors beyond a reasonable doubt of the truth of the charge? (People v. Parchen, 37 Cal.App.2d 215, 222 [98 P.2d 1045]; People v. Murray, 41 Cal. 66, 67.) Circumstantial evidence may be as conclusive in its convincing force as the testimony of witnesses to the overt act (People v. Perkins, 8 *590Cal.2d 502, 511 [66 P.2d 631]; People v. Nagy, 199 Cal. 235, 236 [248 P. 906]); indeed, it often leads to a conclusion more satisfactory than direct evidence can produce (People v. Morrow, 60 Cal. 142); consequently where thei circumstances proved reasonably justify the conclusion of the jury expressed in its verdict, a reviewing court may not interfere with the determination. (People v. Latona, 2 Cal.2d 714 [43 P.2d 260].)
From the evidence presented by the prosecution the jury and the trial judge concluded that Albertson is guilty of the crime charged against him. In an attempt to minimize the damning effect of this evidence, my associates state that it is “entirely circumstantial”; that “no motive whatsoever is shown”; that there is no proof that appellant ever “purchased or otherwise procured the poison,” or that the poison was inserted in two of the capsules prior to mailing, or that the contents of the capsules “were not changed or tampered with” after they were received at the Kmetz home. They also state that if appellant had poisoned the capsules “it seems improbable that he would have left so wide and open a trail”; also, if appellant did prepare and mail the capsules “but unknown to him two of them were poisoned by another, this would logically explain the openness with which he conducted his early activities and a later attempt to conceal and deny them.” These are all matters of argument more properly presentable to a jury and entirely outside of the province of an appellate court which, under elementary rules, must affirm a judgment based upon substantial evidence. Concerning the several matters referred to in the majority opinion as not being covered by the evidence, it was for the jury to decide “what circumstances were essential to satisfy their minds beyond all reasonable doubt of . . . [appellant’s] guilt, and thus constitute necessary links of such chain.” (People v. Wilt, 173 Cal. 477, 485 [160 P. 561]; People v. Ah Jake, 91 Cal. 98 [27 P. 595].)
An appellate court is not concerned with the weight of the evidence, but will only consider whether it includes facts justifying an inference of guilt by the jury. If the evidence reasonably supports that inference, the judgment must stand, although the facts presented to the jury might also reasonably be reconciled with the innocence of the defendant. (People v. Newland, 15 Cal.2d 678 [104 P.2d 778].) The court must assume in favor of the verdict the existence of every *591fact which the jury reasonably could have inferred or deduced from the evidence. (People v. Newland, supra, at p. 681; People v. Perkins, supra; People v. Parchen, supra.)
Kmetz received the box of poison capsules less than two months after he married the woman who for six years had been an intimate acquaintance and frequent companion of Albertson. The association of Esther Dockham and Albert-son commenced when they spent much time together preparing questions and answers on religious topics, and continued after her marriage to Kmetz to almost the very hour when the capsules were sent to the bridegroom. For on the late afternoon of the same day the poison package was mailed, Albertson called for the bride in his automobile and took her away for the week end.
Tending to show that Albertson sent the capsules in a box which he made for that purpose, and also procured and mailed the inducing letter which was delivered with it, is substantial evidence from which his guilt reasonably may be inferred. Bead as a whole it convincingly points to him as the person who carried out the poison plan. Briefly summarized, it shows:
1. The two-page letter which accompanied the capsules was typewritten on letterheads printed upon an order placed, twenty days prior to the death of Kmetz, by a man who paid cash for them. Although the printer was unable to identify Albertson as the man who had ordered the letterheads, any doubt that he was that man would seem to be dissipated by other evidence which positively connects him with the literature of “The Herb Specialty Go.,” an imaginary company with the address of a vacant building.
2. When the printer delivered the letterheads, he referred the purchaser to the Letter Shop in Santa Monica for multigraphing. On the same day a man appeared at the Letter Shop with letterheads of “The Herb Specialty Co.” and ordered a two-page letter written from copy which he submitted. The employee who took this order testified that Albertson very closely resembled the man for whom she did the work and the letter written by her was identified as the one that accompanied the poisoned capsules mailed to Kmetz. This employee informed the customer that if many copies of the letter were desired she would recommend that it be reduced in length and then mimeographed.
3. Eight days later a man came to the same Letter Shop *592and ordered 500 one-page letters to be mimeographed on the letterheads of ‘ ‘ The Herb Specialty Co. ’ ’ He called for them on the following morning. The proprietress positively identified appellant as the man who placed this order and called for the mimeographed letters. The employee of the Letter Shop, who eight days earlier had typed the two-pagé letter which accompanied the capsules to Kmetz, also testified that she later cut the mimeograph stencil from the copy of the one-page letter that had been left with the proprietress for mimeographing, and that she then saw the one-page letter being run from the stencil cut by her on to stationery of “The Herb Specialty Co.” The one-page letter is a condensation of the subject matter of the longer one.
4. Three days prior to the death of Kmetz, a man appeared at the office of a public stenographer and notary public in Hollywood and requested her to address 21 envelopes to the persons whose names appeared on a sheet of paper furnished by him. When called as a witness she identified an envelope addressed to John Kmetz, bearing a return address of “The Herb Specialty Co.,” as one of the envelopes she had written for the man. The envelope contained the two-page letter which accompanied the poison box to Kmetz. This witness positively identified Albertson as the man for whom she did the work.
5. A client of the public stenographer, who was in her office when the envelopes were written, testified he was “80 per cent” sure that Albertson was the man he saw there at that time.
6. Two handwriting experts testified that, in their opinions, the signature of the “doctor” appearing on the two-page letter accompanying the poison box to Kmetz was in the handwriting of the appellant. They reached this conclusion after comparison with and study of exemplars of Albertson’s handwriting.
In addition to this uncontradicted testimony definitely connecting Albertson with the nonexistent “Herb Specialty Co.,” whose name appeared on the poison box, there is other evidence equally substantial and persuasive which points to Albertson as the sender of the capsules received by Kmetz. He is a blacksmith by trade, and cyanide is used in tempering steel. It also appears that cyanogas is the trade name for calcium cyanide. It may be purchased in any drug, feed, or hardware store without a prescription or the signing of a *593poison register, and is composed of small particles of about the same color (dark gray) and form as the content of the two capsules taken by Kmetz.
During the first week of June, 1941, Albertson came to Miss Dockham’s home in Los Angeles and took her to his trailer-tent home in San Pedro. He had been out of work for some time and was attending a W.P.A. welding school in San Pedro. Miss Dockham was not feeling well and she asked Albertson to get her some vitamin capsules. Those he procured were marketed under the name of Pro-Vite and came in a bright orange box which she said was “similar, if not identical both as to appearance, make, exterior and interior” with one which was received in evidence. By August she had taken most of the tablets and left the box in the trailer when she returned to Los Angeles for the opening of school.
One of the handwriting experts examined the construction of the small box which went through the mail and expressed the opinion that “the paper pasted on the top and bottom was not as it came from the factory. It looked to me like a home made job of pasting . . . the interior of the box was not factory made or factory assembled but was assembled in a somewhat amateurish manner.” More specifically, he pointed out that the pasteboard trays in the Pro-Vite box identified by Mrs. Kmetz are of the same thickness as the ones in the box mailed under the name of “The Herb Specialty Co.” and that the holes in each showed the same workmanship. Also, the holes in the trays of each box are of the same size and the same distance apart. He found that the holes in the trays of the Pro-Vite box are not exactly spaced, and demonstrated to the jury that an area, and only one area, on the tray taken from it very accurately matches an area of the one in the box received by Kmetz.
The forensic chemist of the police department corroborated this testimony and also gave the results of his microscopic examination of the two boxes. He found that the cardboard stock in each is the same and that the small one carries some indication of the bright color of the one which came from the drug store. Of even more significance is his testimony that an analysis of tiny particles of paste taken from the upper tray of the small box showed the same chemical content as the mucilage which was found by officers in the Albertson trailer on October 22nd. And he also told the *594jury that on the rubber squeegee o£ this mucilage bottle he found traces of the color of the drug store box.
Certainly this evidence does not justify the implications of the majority opinion that the jury reasonably could not have deduced from the voluminous testimony any or all of the circumstances mentioned as not being covered by it. To illustrate: The statement that there is no evidence to show that the capsules were not tampered with after being received at the Kmetz home entirely ignores facts shown in connection with them. The package in which they were received bore the name of a fictitious company, with directions on part of a letterhead of this mythical organization, and there came with it a descriptive and inducing letter signed by an imaginary “doctor.” This letter was traced to the appellant and handwriting experts testified that the “doctor’s” signature was made by him. The majority opinion also ignores the testimony of the daughter of Kmetz, who saw the package opened by her father on October 11, 1941, and described it as then containing two dark and ten light-colored capsules. At the time Kmetz took the capsules, his widow testified, the box still contained two dark and ten light-colored capsules. Compliance with the enclosed directions suggesting the taking of “2 Dark Capsules at bedtime” resulted in the death of Kmetz. Certainly this evidence reasonably supports the jury’s implied finding that the capsules were not tampered with at 'the Kmetz home or elsewhere after leaving the hands of the sender.
My associates have also usurped the functions of the jury in asserting that “no motive whatsoever is shown” for appellant’s commission of the homicide. Preliminarily, it should be stated that while proof of motive is always material, and the absence of motive may be considered by the jury on the side of innocence, it is not an essential factor in the proof of a crime. If from the evidence tending to connect appellant with the capsules and the literature which came with them the jurors believed he sent the poison to Kmetz, it was not necessary, in order for them to render a verdict of guilty, to find a motive which led him to do so. (People v. Kelley, 208 Cal. 387, 390-391 [281 P. 609]; People v. Tom Woo, 181 Cal. 315, 328 [184 P. 389].)
But there is an answer of fact, as well as of law, to the argument of the majority opinion. Motive is the thought that impels one to act; it is the product of human relation*595ships and environment, follows no general pattern and very often cannot be accounted for upon any analysis of logical human behavior. Conditions which induce one person to act in a particular way have no effect whatever upon another. Often there is no understandable basis for certain conduct. The present case, however, is not one of that class in which there is no evidence to show motive. Certainly in the relations of Esther Dockham and the Albertsons for six years, and the part John Kmetz played in them for a few brief months, there is much that might have led to criminal conduct. Indeed, that evidence provides substantial support for concluding that any one of several motives was the procuring cause of the murder.
From 1935 when Esther Dockham took a teaching position at San Pedro to the death of Kmetz in 1941, Albertson and his wife lived in a trailer and a tent house which adjoined it. For some time Miss Dockham lived with them; after she left San Pedro she frequently returned there for over night or longer visits. On an unspecified number of occasions Mr. Albertson alone came to Los Angeles in his automobile to take her to San Pedro.
Miss Dockham met Kmetz in September, 1940, and started “keeping company” with him in January, 1941. For several months she saw him frequently. In either March or April Miss Dockham wrote a letter to Kmetz in which she stated she would not go out with him any longer. But evidently Kmetz disregarded her letter and was a persistent suitor, for afterward he came to see her several times. And during these and later months of 1941 Miss Dockham was frequently with Albertson. The first occasion shown by the evidence was in February or March, 1941, when the treasurer of the school board was at Miss Dockham’s home. Albertson came to see her and she introduced him as her uncle. The witness testified that, at the time he left, Albertson’s unoccupied car was standing in front of the house.
Another witness was a student at the school where Miss Dockham was teaching in the fall of 1941. He testified that when she called at his home to deliver his grade card he saw Albertson alone in his car in front of the house. On another occasion, the witness said, he saw Albertson and Miss Dock-ham together at church. Mrs. Albertson was not present and they drove away together. On several other occasions, the boy told the jury, he noticed Albertson sitting alone in his car near the school.
*596Even after Miss Dockham’s marriage to Kmetz she continued her association with Albertson. On at least one occasion he came to the Kmetz house when her husband was not present. And Kmetz received the poisoned capsules the morning after his wife left with Albertson to spend the week end at San Pedro. She was ready with her bag packed when Albertson called for her at 5:00 o’clock in the afternoon. He was alone. They made one stop at Gardena on the way to San Pedro. The next day she and the Albertsons went to church, at Inglewood, returning to the trailer for dinner. On Sunday morning she accompanied Albertson to Gardena on a business errand. They came back to San Pedro, and that evening the Albertsons drove her to Los Angeles. Two hours after she arrived at her house Kmetz took the two dark capsules. He died shortly afterward.
The following morning Mrs. Kmetz spent a short time at the East Los Angeles School, and in the late afternoon she went to the Albertsons in San Pedro. Lola, Kmetz’ daughter, accompanied her. When Mrs. Kmetz and Lola returned to Los Angeles the next day, the Albertsons went with them and took up their residence at the East Third Street home. Mrs. Albert-son was living there at the time of the trial. Although the People were not required to prove a particular, or any, motive for killing Kmetz, it was for the jury to determine whether one might be inferred from this and other evidence.
Any discussion of the existence of a possible motive for the homicide necessarily must also include a consideration of the evidence concerning the assault made upon Kmetz on the night of August 30, 1941, twelve days after he had married Esther Dockham and approximately six weeks prior to his death. At the outset, it may be conceded that this evidence would be incompetent and inadmissible in the prosecution for murder unless it tended to prove some element of or motive for the homicide and likewise tended to connect appellant with the assault. The general rule is that evidence of other crimes is admissible when it tends to establish motive, intent, absence of accident or mistake, identity, guilty knowledge, or a common scheme or plan (1 Wharton’s Criminal Evidence 490-491, sec. 345), and the trial judge accordingly instructed the jury “that the defendant is not on trial in this case for any crime connected with an assault upon John Kmetz . . . The evidence with regard to . . . [such an at*597tack is] to be considered by you only as the same may relate to the matter of the relationship of the defendant to John Kmetz, the matter of premeditation, the matter of malice or the matter of motive. Such evidence may not be considered by you for any other purpose.”
The appellant contends that the instruction should have been qualified by the further statement that before this testimony could be considered the jurors must believe, beyond any reasonable doubt, that Albertson committed the assault. But the law, as recently declared by this court in People v. Lisenba, 14 Cal.2d 403, 429-432 [94 P.2d 569], is to the contrary, for it was there held “that evidence which merely tends to show . . . the commission of other offenses is admissible . . . even though it falls short of proving the corpus delicti of such other offenses.” In the Lisenba case it was decided that as the prosecution had “made a substantial showing tending to prove” the prior offense, the trial court properly admitted what were described as “simply evidentiary facts introduced for the purpose of being considered [by the jury], together with all of the other evidence in the case . . . doubtful and otherwise,” in its determination of the ultimate fact. (People v. Lisenba, supra.) The majority opinion, in concluding that the testimony challenged by the appellant does not amount to “substantial evidence” that he committed the assault, ignores the settled rules of criminal procedure and adopts a theory different from that urged by Albertson.
It is undisputed that shortly after 10:00 o’clock on the night of August 30, 1941, Kmetz was set upon in front of his home and struck over the head with a pickax handle. The assailant then ran across a vacant lot east of the Kemtz home, entered a car parked on McDonnell Avenue, which then moved south, made a “U” turn to the north, and drove away “as fast as it could go” without any lights. Before the grand jury Mrs. Kmetz testified that just prior to the assault she noticed the parked car and that it looked like the automobile her “uncle” (appellant) drove. This testimony was read to her upon the trial to refresh her recollection which in the interim had become hazy and uncertain. She then testified that the car parked close to the Kmetz home immediately preceding the assault resembled the automobile owned by Albertson.
There is other evidence tending to connect Albertson with *598this attack. About 10:15 on the same evening, a car with one person in it failed to make" a boulevard stop in the immediate neighborhood and was pursued by a police officer. After a chase of two miles, the driver of the rapidly fleeing car abandoned it. This automobile, registered in the name of Mrs. Albertson, was customarily driven by the appellant. In it was found, among other things, certain articles of wearing apparel belonging to Albertson.
Some time after 12 o’clock that night, the appellant, clad only in his underwear, was found by the police about three miles from the place where the abandoned automobile had been found. He then told the fantastic story narrated in detail in the majority opinion. It was the province of the jury to determine from all of the evidence concerning the attack upon Emetz, including the testimony of the handwriting experts that Albertson had written the “Crocker” postcard, whether appellant was the assailant. Had Emetz named Albertson as the person who struck him with a club on the night of August 30th, there would be no question concerning the admissibility of testimony to that effect. As the record shows that Emetz was unable to identify his assailant, the testimony from which it may very reasonably be inferred that Albertson was the attacker and, to divert suspicion from himself, fabricated his account of the meeting with “O’Con-nor” and “Crocker” and the other events of that night, was equally relevant. The fact that the attack was six weeks before the death of Emetz affected the weight, but not the admissibility, of the evidence, and its purpose was not to prove Albertson guilty of the assault but to show a motive for the homicide. Certainly the evidence upon this issue affords a substantial basis for an inference of motive.
As stated in 1 Wharton’s Criminal Evidence 289, section 246, it is “always proper for the prosecution to offer evidence of motive, regardless of any collateral effect it may have in showing, or tending to show, the commission of another offense by the accused. An inquiry in this regard is often of great importance, particularly in cases of circumstantial evidence.” And in People v. Argentos, 156 Cal. 720, 726 [106 P. 65], this court declared: “In a case where the identity of a person who commits a crime is attempted to be proven by circumstantial evidence, such as in the ease at bar, evidence of a motive on the part of a defendant charged is always a subject of proof, and the fact of motive particularly *599material. In proof of motive the prosecution has a right to offer any testimony which reasonably and fairly has a tendency to establish it, and we are satisfied that the evidence which was admitted by the court and of which appellant complains, was relevant to, and had a logical bearing upon, the subject. What weight that evidence might have was a question for the jury, but that it was admissible, notwithstanding it showed the defendant was charged with some other offense than the one for which he was being tried, and though its tendency might have been to prejudice him in the minds of the jury, is not, under the authorities, open to question. (People v. Sanders, 114 Cal. 216 [46 P. 153].)” (See, also, People v. Soeder, 150 Cal. 12, 15 [87 P. 1016]; People v. Wilson, 117 Cal. 688, 691 [49 P. 1054]; 1 Wharton’s Criminal Evidence 569, sec. 360, and authorities supra.)
Taken as a whole the evidence points unerringly to Albertson as the person who, actuated by any one of several motives, conceived and carried out a thoroughly premeditated plan to kill the husband of Esther Doekham. The hand of Albertson is clearly seen in the preparation and mailing of the letter in the name of “The Herb Specialty Co.” There can be no reasonable doubt whatever that the discarded box in which the vitamin pills he bought for Esther Doekham were marketed furnished the design as well as the material for the vehicle used to carry the poison to Kmetz.
The record shows that the appellant had a fair trial with full protection of his rights. Certainly no error is shown which, after an examination of the entire cause including the evidence, reasonably suggests that there has been a miscarriage of justice. (Const., art. VI, sec. 4½.)
For these reasons, in my opinion, the judgment and also the order denying a new trial should each be affirmed.
Gibson, C. J., and Curtis, J., concurred.
Respondent’s petition for a rehearing was denied February 17, 1944. Gibson, C. J., Curtis, J., and Edmonds, J., voted for a rehearing.