Sidders v. United States

• Decision Date: 27 July 1967
• Docket Number: No. 21619.,21619.
• Citation: 381 F.2d 513
• Parties: Keith Leland SIDDERS and William Arthur Clark, Appellants, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

381 F.2d 513 (1967)

Keith Leland SIDDERS and William Arthur Clark, Appellants, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee.

No. 21619.

United States Court of Appeals Ninth Circuit.

July 27, 1967.

Gordon L. Hawkins, Las Vegas, Nev., for appellants.

Joseph L. Ward, U. S. Atty., Robert S. Linnell, Asst. U. S. Atty., Las Vegas, Nev., for appellee.

Before MADDEN, Judge of the United States Court of Claims, and BARNES and MERRILL, Circuit Judges.

MADDEN, Judge:

The appellants, Sidders and Clark, were indicted and convicted in the United States District Court for the District of Nevada. The indictment charged that the appellants, on or about September 25, 1964, robbed two employees of the First National Bank of Nevada, Las Vegas, Nevada, of $6,183.04 of money belonging to the bank, and in doing so assaulted the two employees, the appellants' actions being violations of § 2113(d) and § 2 of Title 18 of the United States Code. The jury found appellants guilty of the lesser included offense of bank robbery without assault, a violation of § 2113(a) of Title 18. The court sentenced Sidders to the custody of the Attorney General for treatment and supervision for a period of ten years under the provisions of § 5010(c) and § 5017(d) of Title 18 of the Code. It sentenced Clark to 15 years imprisonment.

In this appeal the appellants specify as errors committed by the trial court the admission of certain testimony and exhibits relating to the purchases of and payments for automobiles by the appellants at various times following the robbery here involved; the admission of testimony of a prosecution witness as to a statement made to him by the appellant Clark as to the amount of money which Clark had at a certain time after the robbery; the admission of testimony of prosecution witnesses as to the employment of the appellants before and after the robbery, this testimony being presented by the prosecution as having a bearing upon the sources of the money spent by the appellants for the purchase of the automobiles referred to above; and the admission of testimony of a prosecution witness to an alleged prior contradictory statement by a defense witness.

We recite the substance of the prosecution's evidence. At approximately 6:30 p. m. on September 24, 1964, the female drive-in teller of the bank was crossing the driveway between her drive-in window and the bank with a box containing the day's receipts of currency. She was accompanied by a vault teller who carried the box containing the coins. Together they had a total of $6,183.04. As they approached the rear door of the bank a white two-door automobile drove up and stopped. One man jumped out of the auto, pointed a gun at the vault teller, grabbed the boxes containing the money, got into the car, which was driven away by another man. The tellers noted the license number of the car, Nevada CB3639, and that the man who had grabbed the money wore a knitted ski mask and the driver wore a baseball cap and wraparound sun glasses. A by-stander witnessed the robbery and described the robbery car as a 1964 Chevrolet, white, with Nevada license CB3639.

The person to whom those license plates had been issued testified that she was an employee of the Dunes Hotel in Las Vegas and that the plates had been taken from her car at some time prior to September 26. The 1964 white Chevrolet of a guest at the Dunes Hotel was stolen on September 24. About an hour after the bank robbery, a Las Vegas policeman discovered the Chevrolet abandoned in a shopping center and notified the Federal Bureau of Investigation. An FBI agent removed the license plates from the car and took fingerprints from them and from the interior of the car. Several of the fingerprints on the license plates were those of the appellant Clark. One of the numerous prints from the interior of the car was that of the appellant Sidders. In the car were found papers from the robbed bank, $33.04 in coins strewn about the back seat of the car, and a red cap.

A witness, Robert Middleton, who had a criminal record, testified that he became acquainted with appellant Sidders in March of 1965 and that some time prior to July of 1965 Sidders had told him that "the bank had been robbed and it was himself and Mr. Clark"; that "the car that was used was stolen from the Dunes"; and that drive-in tellers were "easy to rob."

Sidders and Clark lived together in Clark's apartment from February or March, 1964, until the end of September, 1964.

On September 28, 1964, Sidders purchased an automobile in San Francisco, California, paying $2100 in cash and travellers checks for it. On December 28, 1964, Sidders purchased a car in Detroit, Michigan, paying $3,390 in cash for it. On January 22, 1965, Clark purchased an automobile in Detroit, Michigan, paying $2,867 in cash for it. He then travelled to New Jersey, North Carolina and Florida and always stayed at the best places.

Adverting now to the appellants' claims that errors were committed at the trial, we consider the evidence of the purchase by the appellants of automobiles for cash, after the robbery. The appellants recognize that when there is other evidence connecting an accused person with a crime, the perpetrator of which obtained money from the crime, evidence that the accused person was impecunious before the crime but well provided with money after the crime is admissible as circumstantial evidence that the crime was the source of the money. Hansberry v. United States, 295 F.2d 800 (CA 9, 1961), and Lyda v. United States, 321 F.2d 788 (CA 9, 1963), are pertinent on this problem. The opinion in United States v....