West v. State

Will West was convicted of arson, and his motion for a new trial was overruled. There is no controversy over any question of law, the only issue in the case being as to the sufficiency of the evidence. It is insisted by the plaintiff in error that there is no proof of the corpus delicti. In cases of arson, as in every other crime, it is absolutely necessary that the evidence, whether *106direct or circumstantial, should show, to a moral and reasonable, certainty and to the exclusion of every other reasonable hypothesis, that the crime was committed by some one. No universal and. invariable rule…