Sanders v. State, 45057
| Decision Date | 03 February 1969 |
| Docket Number | No. 45057,45057 |
| Parties | Alton SANDERS, a alias Harold White v. STATE of Mississippi. |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
Joseph H. Benvenutti, Bay St. Louis, for appellant.
Joe T. Patterson, Atty. Gen., by Guy N. Rogers, Asst. Atty. Gen. and Laurence Y. Mellen, Special Asst. Atty. Gen., Jackson, for appellee.
This is an appeal by Alton Sanders, alias Harold White, from a verdict of the Circuit Court of Hancock County, Mississippi, finding the appellant guilty of uttering a forgery for which he was sentenced to serve a term of eight years in the Mississippi State Penitentiary. At the conclusion of the State's testimony, a motion to exclude the State's evidence and to grant the defendant a directed verdict was refused. The gravamen of this joint motion is that the State had failed to meet the burden of proof necessary to establish the crime of uttering a forgery and that evidence of the jailhouse identification at which appellant was without counsel and was not placed in a line-up was improperly admitted.
The relevant facts disclosed by the evidence offered in this cause by the State reveal that late in the afternoon on April 8, 1967, the appellant entered the Winn-Dixie store in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, and went to the office situated therein where Mrs. Joyce Bermond, head cashier, was working and tapped on the window. Neither she nor the appellant spoke, but the appellant presented her with a check drawn on the Loop National Bank of Mobile, Alabama, made by one Harvey Hutchen, payable to the order of Harold White in the sum of $215. In the upper left-hand corner of this check were typed the words 'Safeway Construction Company.' Mrs. Bermond looked at the appellant and endorsed on the back of said check the initials which she encircled and returned the check to the appellant. Appellant thereupon presented to Mrs. Johnson, who was a cashier working in Winn-Dixie, the check which had been endorsed 'Harold White' on the back thereof opposite the initials Mrs. Johnson cashed the check and gave the appellant the $215 designated on the face of the check. The record discloses that this check was presented to the Hancock Bank and the Hancock Bank in turn forwarded the check to the Merchants National Bank of Mobile. The latter bank returned the check with the notation attached thereto under its name 'evidently drawn on us in error.' Winn-Dixie has never obtained the $215 which it paid out to the appellant on the above described check.
The record further discloses that there is no bank known as the Loop National Bank of Mobile. Testimony offered by the State also was strongly to the effect that there was no such person known as Harold White, the payee, in Hancock County. Neither was there known a Harvey Hutchens, the purported maker of the check, nor was there known to be in the county a construction company named Safeway Construction Company.
Out of the presence of the jury the record discloses that the appellant was arrested in Picayune, Mississippi, when he endeavored to cash a check in the sum of $204 drawn on the Loop National Bank of Mobile, purporting to be the check of the Safeway construction Company, payable to Harold White, identical in appearance and in form with the check in the case at bar. This transaction in Picayune took place on Friday, May 13, 1967, an ominous day for the appellant. The assistant manager of the Winn-Dixie store of Picayune, Mr. Richard Carroll, testified that he was familiar with the loss which Mr. Charles Langford, manager of the Bay St. Louis Winn-Dixie store, had sustained by cashing the check presented by the appellant payable to Harold White, and also he had knowledge from Mr. Ed. Smith, who manages the Slidell Winn-Dixie store, that the appellant had cashed a similar check there. Subsequent to the presentation of the check in Picayune, Mr. Richard Carroll notified the Police Department of Picayune that the appellant was endeavoring to cash the check, and although appellant, having sensed that he had created some suspicion, was rapidly walking away from the store, he was followed by Mr. Richard Carroll and the manager and they called to him to stop, which he did, having left the check in the sum of $204 when he took 'French leave.' The police arrived when he was being interviewed by Mr. Carroll and he was arrested and placed in jail in Pacayune, Mississippi, and subsequently transferred to Bay St. Louis.
None of this evidence was admitted but was excluded by the trial court and none of this evidence was heard by the jury. In passing, and conceding that it has no bearing on the merits of this case whatsoever, there was found on the person of appellant numerous credit cards and notes of identification bearing the names of other persons than Alton Sanders or Harold White. Approximately thirty days subsequent to the time that he received the $215 when he presented the fraudulent check he was identified in the sheriff's office by Mrs. Joyce Bermond and Mrs. Loretta Johnson. This identification was not presented by the State, but was brought out extensively by appellant's counsel on cross-examination in his effort to discredit the courtroom identification made by these two witnesses when they were testifying for the State during the trial of this cause. It should be noted that the cross-examination wholly fails to establish any pre-existing arrangement between the sheriff and any witness for the State or between the State and the sheriff.
Three assignments of error are urged by the appellant, the first being that the trial court erred in overruling the motion of appellant to suppress and quash the evidence and the indictment. We find no merit in this assignment for the reason that on its face the indictment stated a violation of the prohibition set forth in Section 2179 of the Mississippi Code 1942 Annotated ...
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