A Tramp's Alibi: Thirty Tumwater Witnesses and a Murder Conviction Undone
A poor itinerant tinker was jailed for a Tacoma murder until residents of a small Thurston County hotel town swore he was miles away. The state Supreme Court ordered a new trial.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
CROSBY'S MURDER. NEW EVIDENCE BY RESIDENTS OF TUMWATER. Sunve, the Convicted Murderer, is Granted a New Trial—Incidents in the Case. [Concluded from yesterday.]
The court examined the cases cited by the respondent and found none in point. In this case, the affidavit alleged diligence, and the circumstances bore out the allegation. There were none of the suspicious circumstances sometimes apparent in such cases. The defendant was a poor, ignorant, obscure tramp tinker, without money, or standing, or friends, or even acquaintance, charged with a crime which aroused the popular indignation and horror of the country. He was shut up in jail without an opportunity to obtain testimony and without means to employ counsel; he had to depend on the efforts of counsel appointed to defend him.
The thirty witnesses proposed to be introduced were acknowledged on all sides to be respectable citizens, above suspicion or reproach, and the circumstances made it impossible that they could have been prompted to give this testimony by any motive other than a commendable and humane desire to prevent the punishment of an innocent man. It was urged that the newly discovered testimony was cumulative, but the court held that rule must receive a common-sense construction and does not apply where the object of the evidence is to prove an alibi.
If the defendant stayed all night at Tice's hotel in Tumwater on the 5th of October, he could not have committed this murder in Tacoma. The appearance of such a person in a small village like Tumwater would be very likely to be noticed by the inhabitants. All the testimony pointed to the first Saturday of October. This additional proof was offered to show that the witnesses were not mistaken. In cases where the fixing of dates depends upon memory, the memory of two men can be better relied upon than that of one; every additional witness, if the jury believes in his integrity, tends to establish the correctness of the date.
The judgment is reversed, and the cause remanded. DUNBAR, J. We concur: Anders, C.J., Stiles, J., Hoyt, J.
“If he stayed all night at Tice's hotel in Tumwater on the 5th of October, he could not have committed this murder in Tacoma.”
In 1891, a poor itinerant tinker's murder conviction turned on whether a small hotel in Tumwater could place him far from Tacoma on the night of the killing. The state Supreme Court's willingness to hear thirty alibi witnesses shows how fragile justice could be for people without money, standing, or counsel. Today, wrongful-conviction cases still hinge on alibi evidence and access to legal resources.
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