Court Opinion

ID: 9742882
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:22:10.549899+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:37.426568
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion
Prentice, J.
I am unable to concur in the majority opinion and dissent thereto, for the reason that the evidence presented to the trial court was grossly insufficient to sustain appellant’s conviction. This Court has stated on numerous occasions that neither a mere suspicion of guilt nor a mere opportunity to commit the crime charged is sufficient to sustain a conviction. In Thomas v. State (1958), 238 Ind. 658, 154 N. E. 2d 503, this Court stated:
“Mere suspicion of guilt is not sufficient to sustain a conviction, nor is mere opportunity or the bare possibility of an opportunity to commit a crime sufficient. There must be substantial evidence of probative value presented in a criminal trial before a conviction can be sustained. A mere scintilla of evidence is not enough. Baker v. State (1956), 236 Ind. 55, 138 N. E. 2d 641; Robertson v. State (1952), 231 Ind. 368, 108 N. E. 2d 711; Sullivan v. State (1928), 200 Ind. 43, 161 N. E. 265 . . .”
Likewise, in Durham v. State (1968), 250 Ind. 555, 238 N. E. 2d 9, this Court stated:
“Moreover, the proof of a mere opportunity to commit the crime, without more, is not sufficient to sustain a conviction. Osbon v. State (1938), 213 Ind. 413, 13 N. E. 2d 223. . . . A verdict based merely upon suspicion, opportunity, probability, conjecture, speculation or unreasonable inferences of guilt gleaned from the vague evidence surrounding the cause of (the decedent’s) death cannot be upheld and must be re*365versed. Manlove v. State (1968), 250 Ind. 70, 232 N. E. 2d 874.”
The only evidence presented to the trial court which would, in any manner, tend to prove appellant’s guilt was that she was in the house with the decedent immediately prior to and at the time of his death, the pistol which had fired the fatal missile was found in a room adjacent to where the decedent’s body was found, the decedent and the appellant had “had words” at some point in the evening prior to the incident in question, and that the appellant had made certain conflicting statements, immediately after the death of her husband, to investigating officers. At best, such evidence was wholly circumstantial, and this Court, in McAdams v. State (1948), 226 Ind. 403, 81 N. E. 2d 671, has previously stated:
“When the evidence before the jury is entirely circumstantial, as in the case before us, certain rules have been established for the jury’s guidance. It is not enough that the circumstances be consistent with the hypothesis of guilt. They must be of so conclusive a character and point so surely and unerringly to the guilt of the accused as to exclude every reasonable hypothesis of his innocence. Heacock v. State (1930), 202 Ind. 344, 353, and cases cited, 174 N. E. 283. ... It must be such that the trier of the facts may reasonably and naturally infer to a moral certainty the existence of the fact sought to be proved. * * (Emphasis supplied)
See also Manlove v. State, supra, and Easton v. State (1967), 248 Ind. 338, 228 N. E. 2d 6.
The mere fact that the appellant was found in the house at the same time that the decedent’s body was discovered would hardly be a substantial basis upon which to ground a conviction for voluntary manslaughter. The parties were husband and wife; each were, simply, in a place where they would normally be expected to be. Likewise, mere evidence of a domestic squabble or disagreement between the decedent and the appellant at some point during the course of the evening preceding the decedent’s death could hardly support, with reasonable cer*366tainty, the inference that the appellant, in fact, voluntarily caused the death of her husband.
The crux, then, of the State’s case against the appellant seems to rest upon those statements made by her immediately following the discovery of her husband’s corpse. Said statements were purely exculpatory in nature, and at no time following the death of her husband did the appellant admit, or in any manner suggest, that she was guilty of voluntarily killing him. The appellant, when questioned by those fire department and police officers who investigated the incident, stated primarily that “some negro had shot her husband”. (Tr. p. 99). She repeated essentially the same statement on numerous occasions.
On November 25, 1969, the appellant voluntarily gave a statement of Officer Jasper Marshall at the Evansville Police Department. Again she stated:
“I heard a shot, and when i (sic) came out of the closet He, the colored man, came running through the bedroom and I ran out almost behind and he went out the front ... I picked it (the phone) up and started back toward the kitchen and I called the Police Department and said ‘My husband has been shot.’ ”
The conflicting evidence with respect to the incident in question, referred to in the majority opinion, appears further on in appellant’s wirtten statement, as follows:
“Q. Did you shoot him?
A. No, I never shot him.
Q. Did he kill himself?
A. Why did he shoot himself?
(At this point Mrs. Madison broke down crying)
I took the gun off the kitchen table and threw it in the living room.
Q. Where were you when he shot himself?
A. Looking in the closet.
Q. Was the gun still in his hand?
A. Yes, I took it out.”
(Tr. p. 189)
*367The following testimony of Officer Jasper Marshall, on direct examination, is also significient in this regard:
“Q. Now, did you talk to her at any time, or was anything said after this statement, this typewritten statement, was completed?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And when was that?
A. She made a statement right after she signed it, she sat there for a while, and then she said, no, he didn’t shoot himself, that damned negro shot him.”
(Tr. p. 192)
The appellant was visibly shaken by the circumstances surrounding the death of her husband. She was hysterical and incoherent when the investigating officers arrived at the scene. Thereafter, she was prone to much crying, sobbing, and occasional screaming. Ruby Madison testified that when she visited the appellant during the latter’s incarceration, “(s)he was shook up and tore up so bad you couldn’t talk to her hardly.” (Tr. p. 171). When death makes an unexpected call within the family circle, how many times do we hear some surviving member make statements which, in substance, are confusing, conflicting, and totally irrational.
The statement in the majority opinion that “Clearly, the jury was satisfied that appellant’s various versions of the affair did not represent what had in fact occurred,” is devoid of meaning. If the jury did not believe the appellant’s account of the events surrounding the death of her husband, then she was entitled to an acquittal for there was no other evidence of probative value in the record which would, in any manner, support an inference of guilt. With respect to exculpatory statements made by an accused, the Supreme Court of North Carolina, in the case of State v. Carter (1961), 254 N. C. 475, 119 S. E. 2d 461, has stated:
“When the State introduces in evidence exculpatory statements of the defendant which are not contradicted or shown to be false by any other facts or circumstances in evidence, the State is bound by these statements . . .
*368And when the State’s evidence and that of the defendant is to the same effect, and tend only to exculpate the defendant, his motion for judgment as of nonsuit should be allowed . . .
While the State by offering this evidence was not precluded from showing that the facts were different, no such evidence was offered, and the State’s case was made to rest entirely on the statements of the defendant, which the State presented as worthy of belief.”
See also Pollard v. State (1950), 229 Ind. 62, 94 N. E. 2d 912.
The judgment of the trial court should be reversed and this cause remanded with instructions to grant the appellant’s motion for new trial.
DeBruler, J., concurs.
Note. — Reported in 269 N. E. 2d 164.