State v. Keller

70 P. 1051, 8 Idaho 699, 1902 Ida. LEXIS 61
Idaho Supreme Court·Decided December 15, 1902·Published·Cited by 48 cases

Opinion

SULLIVAN, J.

— The appellant, who was the defendant in the trial court, was convicted on December 19, 1901, of the crime of driving about two thousand sheep from Box Elder county, state of Utah, into Oneida county, Idaho. The facts are substantially as follows: Under the quarantine laws of this state (see Laws 1899, p. 452) the governor of Idaho on March 19,1901, issued a quarantine proclamation, the validity of which is not questioned here. The act under which said proclamation was issued was held to be not in contravention of section 8, article 1, or section 2, article 4, of the constitution of the United States, by this court, in State v. Rasmussen, 7 Idaho, 1, 97 Am. St. Rep. 234, 59 Pac. 933, 52 L. R. A. 78, which decision was affirmed by the supreme court of the United States. (State v. Rasmussen, 181 U. S. 198, 21 Sup. Ct. Rep. 594, 45 L. ed. 820.) In said proclamation it was declared that in certain localities (naming them), including Box Elder county, state of Utah, scab was epidemic among sheep, and prohibited sheep which had been held, herded, or ranged within or driven through said infected districts from being brought into this state for a period of forty days from the date of said proclamation. On June 17, 1901, an information was filed in the district court of Oneida county, charging the appellant with the crime of which he was convicted as above stated. The defendant was sentenced to pay a fine of $200. The appellant’s motion for a new trial was denied, and this appeal is from the judgment and order denying a new trial.

It is contended by counsel for appellant that the state failed to prove the corpus delicti; that the body of the crime consisted in driving on April 11, 1901, a hand of two thousand sheep, which between March 9, 1901, and April 12th, of that year, had been held, herded, or ranged in Box Elder county, state of Utah, from the latter county into Oneida county, state of Idaho. The state called as its first witness David H. Anderson, who testified: That he was acquainted with the defendant, and on the twelfth day of April, 1901, went from Samaria, Oneida county, this state, to Pocatello valley, with the defendant, to his sheep camp in said valley. The defendant had one band of sheep [704] there, containing about two thousand head. That they were feeding there and trailing north. That the defendant told witness that they had been camped there for two or three days; that he had wintered the sheep on the desert, and that he had brought them from the desert through Box Elder county, state of Utah, into this state, two or three days previous to the 12th of April; that it would have been impossible for the defendant to have driven his sheep in from the desert and gone to said Pocatello valley without having brought them through said Box Elder county. That said conversation occurred on April 12, 1901, and that the sheep referred to at that time were in Oneida county, state of Idaho. Thereupon the attorney general offered in evidence said proclamation of the governor, and the state rested. Thereupon counsel for defendant asked the court to instruct the jury to return a verdict for the defendant on the ground that the evidence was insufficient to show that the offense charged had been committed, and insufficient to show that the defendant had committed said crime, which motion was overruled by the court. We think the above evidence sufficiently corroborates the statement of the defendant that said sheep had been brought by him from Box Elder county, Utah, subsequent to the date of the governor’s proclamation, and prior to the twelfth day of April, 1901. . The witness saw the sheep in Oneida county. Defendant claimed to own them, and stated that he had wintered them on the desert, and had brought them through Box Elder county, Utah, into Idaho, two or three days prior to the 12th of that month. The court did not err in denying said motion.

That the state in criminal eases must prove the corpus delicti is not questioned, and it is a well-recognized rule that that may be proved by either direct or circumstantial -evidence. It is also a well-recognized rule that the fact that a crime has been committed cannot be proved by the extrajudicial confessions or statements of the prisoner, and that there must be some evidence or corroborating circumstances tending to show that a crime has been committed, aside from such confessions or statements. (People v. Jones, 31 Cal. 566; Wharton’s Criminal Evidence, [705]*7059th ed., secs. 632, 633.) In People v. Badgley, 16 Wend. 53, it is said: “Full proof of the body of the crime — the corpus delicti —independently of the confessions, is not required by any of the cases; and in many of them slight corroborating facts were held sufficient.”

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State v. Keller, 70 P. 1051, 8 Idaho 699, 1902 Ida. LEXIS 61 (Idaho 1902).

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