State v. Bridges

• Citation: 349 S.W.2d 214
• Decision Date: 11 September 1961
• Docket Number: No. 2,No. 48323,48323,2
• Parties: STATE of Missouri, Respondent, v. Peter Festus BRIDGES, a/k/a Festus Bridges, a/k/a Peter Festus Bridges, a/k/a Peter Fester Ell, Appellant
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Missouri

Page 214

349 S.W.2d 214

STATE of Missouri, Respondent, v. Peter Festus BRIDGES, a/k/a Festus Bridges, a/k/a Peter

Festus Bridges, a/k/a Peter Fester Ell, Appellant.

No. 48323.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 2.

Sept. 11, 1961.

Charles M. Shaw, Clayton, for appellant.

Thomas F. Eagleton, Atty. Gen., George E. Schaaf, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., for respondent.

STORCKMAN, Judge.

The defendant was found guilty of murder in the first degree as charged in the information and his punishment was assessed at imprisonment in the penitentiary during the remainder of his natural life. His motion for new trial was overruled and he was sentenced in accordance with the verdict of the jury. The trial court sustained the defendant's motion to appeal as a poor person and the transcript of the record was furnished at state expense in accordance with Sec. 485.100, RSMo 1949, V.A.M.S.

The defendant was represented at the trial by able counsel, but no brief has been filed in this court on the defendant's behalf. The case is before us on the transcript of the record and the brief of the respondent. In this situation our review extends to the assignments of error properly preserved in the defendant's motion for a new trial and the essential portions of the record. S.Ct. Rules 27.20 and 28.02, V.A.M.R.; State v. Slicker, Mo., 342 S.W.2d 946, 947.

There are five assignments of error in the motion for new trial, all of which relate to the admission of evidence. In general they charge that the court erred in permitting the state to prove an exculpatory denial of the defendant, in admitting in evidence oral and written confessions of guilt, and in permitting the state to prove in rebuttal prior convictions of the defendant. Since the sufficiency of the evidence is not challenged, our statement of facts will be restricted to those necessary to an understanding of the issues involved.

Herman E. Hass and his wife Alice lived at 159 Edgar Road in the City of Webster Groves, St. Louis County, Missouri. Living with them were their two sons and William Cecil Giles, a brother of Mrs. Haas. At about 11 a. m. on October 12, 1959, their nine-year-old son David came home and found the bodies of his mother and his uncle on the basement floor in pools of blood. David ran to the house of a neighbor who notified Mr. Haas who was at his place of employment. When Mr. Haas and others arrived at the home, it was ascertained that both Mrs. Haas and Mr. Giles had been killed by multiple stab wounds.

The defendant, whose age was variously given from 48 to 55, had been employed by Mr. Haas as a handyman to do work around the home and elsewhere. He was known to some of the neighbors. On the morning in question, he was seen on the Haas's premises by Mrs. Regan, one of the neighbors, and her son Mark shortly before the bodies were discovered. At the request of the Webster Groves Police Department, the defendant was arrested by St. Louis City police at about 8 p. m. on the day the murders were committed. He was held by the St. Louis police as a fugitive for the Webster Groves Department. First he was taken to the 12th District Police Station in St. Louis. The Webster Groves Department was notified and two members of that force came to the station about an hour after the defendant was arrested. They and St. Louis policemen interrogated the defendant and investigated his answers. Early the next morning the defendant was transferred to the Central District Police Headquarters where he was questioned further and, with his consent, was given a polygraph test early in the afternoon of October 13. He was then processed and turned over to the Webster Groves Police Department at 3:30 p. m.

At the Webster Groves Police Headquarters the defendant was interrogated further. At about 5:30 p. m. on that day, October 13, he orally confessed that he had killed both Mrs. Haas and Mr. Giles. The coroner of St. Louis County then took a written statement from the defendant in question and answer form. The defendant signed the written confession and initialed each page. In his oral and written confessions, the defendant stated that he lured Mr. Giles into the basement of the Haas's home and killed him by stabbing him with a butcher knife because Mr. Giles had taken jobs away from the defendant; when Mrs. Haas came into the basement and discovered him in the act of killing Mr. Giles, the defendant knocked her to the floor and stabbed her to death in order to silence her as a witness. The defendant pleaded not guilty and undertook to prove an alibi. He and a Mrs. Martha McKinley testified that the defendant was in her home near the time the murders were committed. Additional evidence will be developed in connection with the questions presented.

The defendant's first assignment of error is that the trial court erred in permitting Lieutenant Emmett Potthoff of the Webster Groves Police Department 'to testify to an exculpatory denial of the defendant' over the defendant's objection. Lieutenant Potthoff testified in substance that he questioned the defendant at the 12th District Police Station on the evening of October 12 and the defendant told him that he had not been in Webster Groves that morning or any time that day; that about 7 a. m. he went to Bud Brown's place on North Broadway; that Brown and he picked up 200 bags of feed in South St. Louis and delivered it to Sparta, Illinois; and that he, the defendant, did not get back to St. Louis until sometime after noon. The defendant's later statements and testimony were that he was in St. Louis all day. His later declarations also conflicted in other minor details with what he told Lieutenant Potthoff. Witnesses contradicted the defendant's declaration that he was not in Webster Groves on the day the crimes were committed. The defendant's denial that he was in Webster Groves was a part of the same transaction and was a corollary of his claim that he was elsewhere.

The state is not limited to proof of inculpatory declarations of the defendant since self-serving statements are also admissible where they tend to show a consciousness of guilt and a desire or disposition to conceal the defendant's criminal agency. The general rule of broader application is thus stated in State v. Walker, 357 Mo. 394, 208 S.W.2d 233, 236: 'The general rule is that acts, conduct, and declarations of the accused occurring after the commission of an alleged offense which are relevant and tend to show a consciousness of guilt, or a desire or disposition to conceal the crime, are admissible in evidence.' See also State v. Cade, 326 Mo. 1132, 34 S.W.2d 82, 85[16, 17]; State v. Hardin, 324 Mo. 28, 21 S.W.2d 758, 761; and State v. Daly, 210 Mo. 664, 109 S.W. 53, 56. 22A C.J.S. Criminal Law Sec. 738, pp. 1094-1095, has this comprehensive statement which includes other facets of the rule: 'Self-serving statements made by or for accused out of court, explaining suspicious circumstances, may be proved against him, and their falsity may then be shown. The fact of their falsity admits them as indicating an attempt to explain away incriminating circumstances by falsehoods. Where accused testifies, his self-serving statements contradicting his testimony, may be shown. It may be shown also that accused made two or more conflicting statements out of court in reference to an incriminating fact; and this right is not affected by the fact that accused does not become a witness. Inconsistent statements relevant to the crime charged are not limited to use for impeachment purposes; they have substantive effect as tending to show a consciousness of guilt.' The assignment of error is denied.

The next three specifications in the motion for new trial charge that the court erred in admitting in evidence testimony of defendant's oral confession of guilt and his written confession which was state's Exhibit 12 in that the confessions were not voluntary, thereby violating defendant's right against self-incrimination contrary to Sec. 19, Art. I, Constitution of Missouri, V.A.M.S., and his right to due process of law as guaranteed by Sec. 10 of Art. I, Constitution of Missouri, and the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. These assignments will be treated together.

Prior to the admission of the confessions in evidence, an interlocutory hearing was held out of the presence of the jury. The trial court ruled that the confessions were not, as a matter of law, inadmissible. The fact issue was submitted to the jury under an instruction that the confessions should be given such probative value as the jury believed they deserved if the jury found that the confessions were voluntarily given.

The evidence in this regard further shows that the defendant made an oral confession to Webster Groves policemen before 5:30 p. m. on October 13. The written confession was thereafter taken by the coroner. The oral confession as testified to by Sergeant Otto Piffel of the Webster Groves Police Department was as follows:

'Q. (By Mr. McSweeney) Just tell us what he said, your best recollection of it. A. He said that he went to the home at 159 Edgar Road and he saw Mr. Giles working in the driveway and this made him very angry, so he went to the back, to the kitchen door, which is to the back of the house, and he called to Mrs. Haas that he had come for his shoes, and Mrs. Haas said that his shoes are downstairs, and with this, she turned and walked back toward the living room. He had the screen door open and took a knife from the kitchen table and he then went back outside and entered the basement through the basement entrance. Then he had to think of a reason to get Mr. Giles into the basement. So, due to the fact that there was some lumber and things disarranged in the basement, he asked Mr. Giles to come help him find his shoes, that he couldn't find them. Mr. Giles entered the basement and an argument started over taking of his job. Mr. Giles started toward the tool shed...