State v. Bellew

• Decision Date: 29 January 1981
• Docket Number: No. 11708,11708
• Citation: State v. Bellew, 612 S.W.2d 401 (Mo. App. 1981)
• Parties: STATE of Missouri, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Richard Stephen BELLEW, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

Page 401

612 S.W.2d 401

STATE of Missouri, Plaintiff-Respondent, v.Richard Stephen BELLEW, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 11708.

Missouri Court of Appeals, Southern District, Division Two.

Jan. 29, 1981.

Motion for Rehearing and Transfer Denied Feb. 20, 1981.

Application to Transfer Denied April 6, 1981.

Michael Baker, Springfield, for defendant-appellant.

John Ashcroft, Atty. Gen., John C. Reed, Asst. Atty. Gen., Jefferson City, for plaintiff-respondent.

HOGAN, Judge.

A jury found defendantRichard Stephen Bellew guilty of first-degree robbery as defined and denounced by § 560.120, RSMo 1969, now repealed.The trial court determined that the Second Offender Act, former § 556.280, was applicable and assessed defendant's punishment at imprisonment for a term of 35 years.Defendant appeals.

On August 14, 1978, defendant and a companion "walked away" from the Fordland Honor Camp, a place of penal confinement operated by the Missouri Division of Corrections.Defendant had been convicted of two counts of first-degree robbery in the Circuit Court of the City of Saint Louis in July 1974, had received two concurrent 14-year sentences and was serving those sentences at the time he escaped.

Defendant and his companion stole a car in Springfield and went directly to a service station and "U-haul Rental."There the defendant intimidated the employee in charge and took the contents of the cash register, "(a)bout two hundred dollars in bills and a few half dollars."Defendant and his companion then "headed south."On August 16they were apprehended by Texas officers in Texas near Texarkana. Defendant confessed that he committed the Springfield robbery and a number of other crimes.This prosecution followed.

Upon trial the State offered, and the trial court received, defendant's confession.The sole point made in this court is that the confession should have been excluded because it contained admissions of other crimes and had "(no) reasonable tendency to directly establish the defendant's guilt of the charge for which he was on trial."

There is no doubt whatever that in the process of confessing, defendant admitted he committed several other, distinct crimes.This court would readily concede that proof of the commission of separate and distinct crimes is not admissible unless it has some legitimate tendency to directly establish the defendant's guilt of the charge for which he is on trial.State v. Reese, 364 Mo. 1221, 1226, 274 S.W.2d 304, 307(banc 1954).Nevertheless, if such proof is logically pertinent in that it reasonably tends to prove a material fact in issue, it is not to be rejected merely because it incidentally proves the defendant guilty of another crime.State v. Reese, supra, 364 Mo. at 1227, 274 S.W.2d at 307.

It is hornbook law that proof of the commission of other offenses is competent to prove the specific crime charged if it tends to prove the identity of the person charged with the commission of that crime.State v. Mitchell, 491 S.W.2d 292, 295(1)(2)(Mo. banc 1973).The State is required to prove the defendant's criminal agency his "identity" in any prosecution, not as part of the corpus delicti, but in addition thereto.Cf.State v. Meidle, 202 S.W.2d 79, 81(Mo.1947);State v. Letterman, 603 S.W.2d 951, 954(Mo.App.1980).The State had ample proof of a robbery, but practically no proof of defendant's criminal agency aside from the confession.The confession was properly admitted on the issue of identity.

Of course, the details of the commission of other offenses are properly excluded if the defendant objects.State v. Reese, supra, 364 Mo. at 1227, 272 S.W.2d at 307....