Bishop v. United States

• Citation: 396 F.2d 762
• Decision Date: 02 July 1968
• Docket Number: No. 9911.,9911.
• Parties: Travis Dinsmore BISHOP, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit

396 F.2d 762 (1968)

Travis Dinsmore BISHOP, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee.

No. 9911.

United States Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit.

July 2, 1968.

A. Daniel Rooney, Aurora, Colo., for appellant.

Thomas C. Seawell, Asst. U. S. Atty., Denver, Colo. (Lawrence M. Henry, U. S. Atty., Denver, Colo., on the brief), for appellee.

Before PHILLIPS, HILL and HICKEY, Circuit Judges.

HILL, Circuit Judge.

Appellant was convicted by a jury in the District of Colorado of the transportation of a stolen motor vehicle from Pueblo, Colorado, to Lawton, Oklahoma, knowing the same to have been stolen. The appeal is from the judgment of conviction.

The two contentions made by appellant may be summarized as an attack upon the sufficiency of the evidence to support the jury verdict. In other words, the case, as presented here, is purely factual.

Undisputed evidence in the record discloses that the vehicle in question, a 1964 Lincoln, was owned by Howard Whitlock. On January 10, 1967, he traded the car to the Jess Hunter Motor Company in Pueblo, Colorado. That company then performed certain repair work upon the car, after which and only a few days later, the car was placed in a fenced area where used cars were kept and which area was unlocked except at night. Appellant had previously been employed as a salesman for this motor company. Shortly after being placed in the fenced area, the car disappeared from the lot.

One government witness, Clubs, testified that he was hired by appellant during the latter part of January, 1967, to drive a used De Soto car from Colorado Springs to Oklahoma City. Bishop rode along as far as Pueblo, Colorado, where he got out and stated he was picking up another car to drive to Oklahoma where it would be sold. Clubs and Bishop met the evening of the same day at Springfield, Colorado, and Bishop was then driving a 1964 light colored Lincoln automobile. Clubs further testified that the two of them left the De Soto car at the motel in Springfield and proceeded to Oklahoma City in the Lincoln. They spent one night in Oklahoma City and then drove the Lincoln to Savannah, Tennessee, where Bishop contacted a man named Talley. For the next four or five days Talley had possession of the Lincoln most of the time. During this time the car was driven by Talley to Corinth, Mississippi, and back to Savannah, with Clubs and Bishop in the car. At Corinth Talley obtained new license plates for the car and some "papers." Thereafter, Bishop, Talley and Clubs drove the Lincoln to Lawton, Oklahoma, and on about February 11, 1967, Talley and Bishop sold the Lincoln to one Peck, a Lawton used car dealer. On the same day Peck sold the Lincoln car to another car dealer in Lawton, in whose possession the car was found by an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Specifically, appellant first urges that evidence going to guilty knowledge on his part is lacking. We certainly cannot agree. It is elementary that intent or guilty knowledge is susceptible to proof by either direct or circumstantial evidence or by both. However, in most cases as in this one, circumstantial evidence must be relied upon for proof of this important ingredient of the crime charged. The instruction given in this case on intent was an accurate statement of the law and is a complete answer to appellant's contention when considered together with the undisputed circumstantial evidence as set out above.¹ In connection with this point appellant further argues that in order to conclude from the circumstantial evidence that he had guilty knowledge or intent inference upon...