Meyer v. United States
| Decision Date | 27 August 1968 |
| Docket Number | No. 19024,19025.,19024 |
| Citation | 396 F.2d 279 |
| Parties | Otto Lewis MEYER, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee. John Dwain DUGGER, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit |
Robert G. Duncan, of Pierce, Duncan, Beitling & Shute, Kansas City, Mo., for appellants; Lewis E. Pierce, Kansas City, Mo., on the brief.
Robert E. Johnson, Asst. U. S. Atty., Fort Smith, Ark., for appellee; Charles M. Conway, U. S. Atty., and James A. Gutensohn, Asst. U. S. Atty., Fort Smith, Ark., on the brief.
Before MATTHES, MEHAFFY and LAY, Circuit Judges.
Otto Lewis Meyer and John Dwain Dugger were convicted under a ten-count indictment, nine of which counts charged transportation of stolen motor vehicles in interstate commerce in violation of 18 U. S.C. § 2312, commonly called the Dyer Act, and one count charging conspiracy to accept and agree to accept motor vehicles stolen in various places in the United States outside the State of Arkansas for the purpose of transporting said vehicles into Arkansas for sale in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2, 371 and 2312. Upon the jury's verdict of guilty on all ten counts, the court sentenced these defendants to a term of two years on each of the first five counts, said sentences to run consecutively, and a sentence of two years on Counts 6 through 10 to run concurrently with the sentences on the first five counts.
The assignments of error forming the basis for this appeal are the asserted insufficiency of the evidence to support the convictions and denial by the trial court of defendants' motion for discovery and inspection under Fed.R.Crim.P. 16(b). We affirm the convictions.
Briefly summarized, the facts disclosed by the evidence reflect that Meyer operated two used car lots in Sedalia, Missouri, and resided on a farm approximately twenty miles southeast of Sedalia. Defendant Dugger originally was employed at the Owens Auto Sales in Independence, Missouri, and later moved to Arkansas and resided near Fayetteville where he was engaged in the business of wholesaling cars in northwest Arkansas. Defendants had become acquainted four or five years prior to the offenses here, and during the period of the alleged conspiracy and transportation of the automobiles involved had considerable business dealings with each other.
In connection with defendants' argument with reference to sufficiency of the evidence, they specifically assert that the deficiency in evidence consisted of failure to prove that the stolen automobiles listed in the indictment were the same automobiles which they allegedly possessed in Arkansas. Defendants make no contention that the automobiles listed in the indictment were not stolen, but only claim that the Government has failed in its proof to show that the cars transported to Arkansas and sold by defendants were identified as the same cars that had been stolen.
Our examination of the record evidence indicates that the identity of the nine cars listed in the indictment was clearly established by the restoration of the true identification numbers by the FBI, which numbers had been ground off. A comparison of the restored numbers revealed that they were in fact the stolen automobiles. It so happened that only one of the nine cars was recovered by the owner, who testified as to the identity of his car. In addition to the identification numbers, he recognized a scratch on the glove compartment and found a magnetic hide-a-key box underneath the V-bar frame containing his extra car and house keys.
It would unduly extend this opinion to detail all of the evidence adduced on each of the counts, but, as an example, we relate the evidence in Count 6 which charged defendants with transporting or causing to be transported the automobile belonging to Harvey Holloway, and the evidence of the conspiracy charged in Count 1.
Holloway testified that he was the owner of a 1966 Chevrolet Impala two-door hardtop, giving the identification number as described in Count 6, and that he had compared the number with the number shown on his Missouri title which was introduced into evidence, and it was the same; that the automobile was willow green in color; was stolen from the Montgomery Ward parking lot in Kansas City, Missouri on August 8, 1966 and recovered in Fort Smith, Arkansas where it still had on it a magnetic hide-a-key box which contained his car and house keys as well as a key to a house he owned on the Lake of the Ozarks. As further identification, he identified the car by a scratch on the door of the glove compartment caused by a turning of the key.
On the day following the theft of the car, it was transported to Fort Smith, Arkansas by defendant Meyer's son, who testified that defendant Dugger gave him $25.00 to drive it from Sedalia to Fort Smith and bought him a bus ticket back home. On that same day, Dugger drove another car to Fort Smith and traded both cars to the Farmer Auto Sales for a third car and the cash difference. The purchaser stated that he had met defendant Dugger about 1962, and had seen him from time to time since then at automobile auctions. Farmer received from Dugger a Missouri title in the name of Meyer Auto Sales, endorsed by Otto Meyer, for each of the two cars and wrote the serial numbers shown on the titles on his check, one of said numbers being later determined by the FBI to be an altered number on the car belonging to Mr. Holloway.
Mrs. Mae Walker, owner of a title service company in Jefferson City, Missouri, which she operates as a service to automobile dealers to expedite procurement of titles, testified that on June 28, 1966 she received an application from Meyer Auto Sales signed by Otto Meyer for a title for a 1966 Chevrolet two-door Impala hardtop along with a supporting document purporting to be a Kansas bill of sale from the Van T. Chevrolet Company in Topeka, Kansas, showing the altered identification number of the car described in Count 6 of the indictment. This instrument was purportedly executed by Lee Lefever as Sales Manager and notarized by Frank K. Goldfuss, but both men testified that their purported signatures were forgeries. Mrs. Walker obtained the title as requested and mailed it back to defendant Meyer.
A field representative with the Motor Vehicle Division of the Missouri Department of Revenues made a photostat of the microfilm records of which he was the official custodian and identified the photostat of the bill of sale and application for title which Meyer Auto Sales filed with the Department to obtain the title for the...
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