Stewart v. United States

211 F. 41, 127 C.C.A. 477, 1914 U.S. App. LEXIS 1711
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedFebruary 2, 1914
DocketNo. 2320
StatusPublished
Cited by16 cases

This text of 211 F. 41 (Stewart v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Stewart v. United States, 211 F. 41, 127 C.C.A. 477, 1914 U.S. App. LEXIS 1711 (9th Cir. 1914).

Opinion

VAN FLEET, District Judge

(after stating the facts as above).

[1] 1. Considering the assignments in the order in which they are discussed in the brief, the first is that the court committed prejudicial error in its charge to the jury on the subject of the defendant’s flight from the scene of the homicide. The extract from the charge which is complained of is this:

“The flight of the defendant with Goodwin from the place of the murder is also evidence of guilt and a fact for your consideration.”

It is said that this is virtually an instruction that as a matter of law the defendant was guilty of the offense charged if he fled from the scene of the crime, and was a palpable invasion of the province of the jury to find the effect of that fact in the light of all the evidence. We are not inclined to regard this language, standing alone, as open to the interpretation thus put upon it, or that it would be so understood by the average mind, but we are quite certain that it cannot be so construed when read, as it must be, with its context. The entire feature of the charge bearing upon the question was this;

“Tbe defense of Stewart is that be did not kill ICibbe, and did not participate in the commission of the crime by any act of his own, or by any agreement, plan, or understanding with Goodwin. The defendant admits that he participated in the robbery of the bodies of Hillpot and ICibbe. The statute provides that the killing of a human being committed in the perpetration of or attempt to perpetrate a robbery is murder. The fact of robbery^ is therefore a direct admission for your consideration. The flight of the "defendant with Goodwin from the place of the murder is also evidence of guilt and a fact for your consideration. The only answer the defendant makes to these admitted facts is that he was compelled by Goodwin to do as he did: Is this answer sufficient in the light of all the events and- surrounding circumstances? This is the question you are called upon to answer by your verdict.”

It is quite apparent, we think, that by this language the court did no more in effect than tell the jury that defendant’s flight, which he admitted, like the admission of robbery, was a fact tending to show guilt, which they could take into consideration in determining the ulti[45]*45mate fact; and, while the language was perhaps not as discriminatingly chosen to convey the meaning as it might have been with more mature opportunity for deliberation, we are satisfied that under the circumstances presented to them by the evidence and the charge in its entirety the jury would necessarily so understand it. It is not materially different from the language of the charge construed in Allen v. United States, 164 U. S. 492, 498, 17 Sup. Ct. 154, 156, 41 L. Ed. 528, where the court, distinguishing it from that held erroneous in Hickory v. United States, 160 U. S. 408, 422, 16 Sup. Ct. 327, 40 L. Ed. 474, and in Alberty v. United States, 162 U. S. 499, 509, 16 Sup. Ct. 864, 40 L. Ed. 1051, say:

“Hut in neither of these eases was it intimated that the flight of the accused was not a circumstance proper to be laid before the jury as having a tendency to prove his guilt. Several authorities were quoted in the Hickory Case (160 U. S. 417, 16 Sup. Ct. 327, 40 L. Ed. 474) as tending to establish this proposition. Indeed, the law is entirely well settled that the flight of the accused is competent evidence against him as having a tendency to establish his guilt. Whart. on Homicide, § 710; People v. Pitcher, 15 Mich. 397. This was the substance of the above instruction, and, although not accurate in all its parts, we do not think it could have misled the jury.”

In the case of Starr v. United States, 164 U. S. 627, 17 Sup. Ct. 223, 41 L. Ed. 577, relied on by. defendant, the jury were, in substantial effect, told that flight was in a sense a confession of guilt. This the court held was, within the principles of the Hickory and Alberty Cases, prejudicially erroneous. The present language is, we think, open to no such construction.

[2] 2. The second assignment is based upon 'error claimed to be involved in the admission in evidence against defendant’s objection of a map of the territory disclosing upon its face the boundaries of the White Mountain Indian reservation, without independent proof first being made of its accuracy or authenticity.

In- the first place, we are inclined to the opinion, as seems to have been held by the trial judge, that the recitals upon the face of the map sufficiently evidenced its character as a public document; it appearing therefrom that it was issued from the General Eand Office under the authority of the Secretary of the Interior. Holt v. United States, 218 U. S. 245, 252, 31 Sup. Ct. 2, 54 L. Ed. 1021, 20 Ann. Cas. 1138; 3 Wigmore on Evidence, § 1684, p. 2157.

[3] But in the next place, if there was error in the ruling, it was entirely without prejudice to the defendant’s case. Some five or six witnesses were called by the government, all of whom had resided in Arizona for many years and were familiar with the boundaries of the White Mountain Indian reservation and the location of the scene of the homicide, and all testified positively that the latter was within the boundaries of that reservation. One of these was the sheriff of Gila county, in which Tuttle’s Station was situated, who had lived in the territory since 1881 and had been sheriff for eight terms, with frequent occasion in the discharge of his official duties to familiarize himself with that part of the reservation lying within his county; and another was Mr. Tuttle, the owner of Tuttle’s Station, who testified that he had lived in the territory 36 years, that the station was on [46]*46the Indian reservation, and that when he built the house he was required to secure permission from the government authorities at Washington for the purpose.

[4] All this evidence was admissible for the purpose, was wholly uncontroverted, and quite sufficient, independently of the map, to establish the location of the premises involved in the inquiry. Holt v. United Statés, supra.

[5] 3. The third assignment relates back to the impanelment of the jury, and arises upon the construction of section 1033, R. S. (U. S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 722). That section provides that, when a defendant is indicted for a capital offense, a “Copy of the indictment and list of jurors and witnesses shall be delivered to him at least two entire days before the.trial.” In due time a copy of the indictment, with a list of the witnesses and of the panel of jurors then in attendance upon the court, was furnished defendant, and the trial commenced without objection to their sufficiency. Before the jury was completed, however, the first panel was exhausted and a special venire was brought in.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
211 F. 41, 127 C.C.A. 477, 1914 U.S. App. LEXIS 1711, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/stewart-v-united-states-ca9-1914.