State v. Brooks

• Decision Date: 18 May 1909
• Parties: STATE v. BROOKS.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

119 S.W. 353

220 Mo. 74

STATE v. BROOKS.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 2.

May 18, 1909.

1. CRIMINAL LAW (§ 519)—ADMISSIONS BY DEFENDANT.

A confession, to be inadmissible, must have been made to an officer of the law in consequence of improper influences exerted on defendant.

2. CRIMINAL LAW (§ 519)—ADMISSIONS BY DEFENDANT.

The fact that defendant was under arrest does not render his confession inadmissible.

3. CRIMINAL LAW (§ 519)—ADMISSIONS BY DEFENDANT.

A mere admonition to speak the truth does not render inadmissible a confession by defendant, where no threats or promises were made.

4. CRIMINAL LAW (§ 531)—ADMISSIONS BY DEFENDANT.

Where the evidence on behalf of the prosecution tends to show that there were no improper threats or promises made to defendant before his confession, the fact that defendant subsequently testifies that there were such threats and promises will not render the confession inadmissible.

5. CRIMINAL LAW (§ 781)—ADMISSIONS BY DEFENDANT.

Defendant has the full benefit of his claim that his confession was not voluntary, where the court instructs that the confession must be disregarded if it was obtained while he was in custody by threats or promises, or while he was intoxicated.

6. CRIMINAL LAW (§ 829)—TRIAL—REFUSAL OF INSTRUCTIONS.

The refusal of a requested instruction which is fully covered by other instructions is not error.

7. CRIMINAL LAW (§ 829)—TRIAL—REFUSAL OF INSTRUCTIONS—ALIBI.

The refusal of a requested instruction on the question of alibi was not error, where the court instructed that, if the evidence raised a reasonable doubt as to the presence of defendant at the time and place of the crime, they should acquit him.

8. HOMICIDE (§ 253)—MURDER FOR ROBBERY —EVIDENCE.

Evidence held to sustain a conviction of murder for the purpose of robbery.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Jackson County; Wm. H. Wallace, Judge.

Claud Brooks was convicted of murder, and he appeals. Affirmed.

E. W. Major, Atty. Gen., and J. M. Atkinson, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

GANTT, P. J.

The prosecution in this case was commenced by the filing of the information duly verified by the prosecuting attorney of Jackson county, wherein he charged the defendant with murder in the first degree of one Sidney Herndon on the night of January 12, 1908, in Kansas City, Mo. As the information is in all respects sufficient, it is unnecessary to set it forth at length in this statement. The defendant was arrested and duly arraigned and entered his plea of not guilty, and the cause was set down for trial on the 17th day of February, 1908, on which date he was put upon his trial and convicted by the jury of murder in the first degree and his punishment assessed at death. In due time he filed his motions for a new trial and in arrest of judgment, which were heard and overruled, and thereupon the defendant was duly sentenced to be hung in accordance with the verdict of the jury. From that sentence he has appealed to this court.

The evidence tended to prove the following facts: Sidney Herndon was a man of 45 years of age, about 4 feet in height, and had deformed feet and could only walk by the aid of crutches. He lived at what is known as the Navarre Flats, located at Twelfth street and Broadway avenue, Kansas City. He had an office and an adjoining bedroom on the second floor of said flats. There were some 44 suites of rooms in the said flats; the building being a five-story building. The deceased was manager and collector of rents for the said flats, and owned an interest in the same. He had lived in Kansas City for a number of years, having moved there from Tyler, Tex. He was in the habit of reading until as late as midnight and would usually arise from 9 to 10 o'clock in the morning. The defendant is a negro man about 21 years of age, and had lived in Kansas City 3 or 4 years prior to the date of this homicide. He had worked at different times as elevator boy at said flats for the deceased, but had not been employed there for a month or more prior to the homicide. Deceased was last seen alive about 11:30 o'clock Sunday night, January 12, 1908, by the elevator boy, Vertner Jones, another negro. On Monday morning, January 13, 1908, about 11:30 o'clock, deceased was found in his office room, which fronts on Twelfth street, lying on the floor dead, having been struck on the head with an ordinary hammer some four or five times, and his skull fractured at least three times. The body of the deceased was in a pool of blood; one crutch hanging up, and one laying on the floor at a distance of some six feet from the body. The light was still burning in his office room and a book and a file case lying on the table. The elevator stopped running at 12 o'clock as a usual rule. The elevator boy, Vertner Jones, and a brother of his, Emil Jones, and the fireman, Woodward, all leaving the same time, about 12 o'clock that night. At about 11:30 o'clock Emil Jones, who was waiting for his brother to quit work, saw the defendant on the stairway near the second floor of said building and in an attitude of attempting to hide behind the railing. The defendant was noticed to have a piece of paper some five or six inches in length, rolled up as though something was contained in it. Emil asked the defendant what he was doing, and defendant replied: "Keep still, do not say anything." The elevator boy, Vertner Jones, was the last one to see the deceased alive, and this was about 11:30 o'clock that night, when the witness went into the room of the deceased and turned down the lights and closed the door and left the deceased reading a book and sitting by the table in his shirt sleeves.

The testimony also tended to show that the defendant was living with a negro woman in a rented room at 1311 Wyandotte street, Kansas City, some two weeks or more prior to the date of this homicide, and that, just a few days before the homicide, the woman packed her trunk and left for Memphis, Tenn.; but defendant retained the room, as his time did not expire there until Monday, January 13th. This room he rented from a negro by the name of Webb, who testified: That he had seen the same hammer with which deceased was killed, and which was found in the room with the body of the deceased, prior to that time in the room occupied by the defendant; that on Sunday night at 8:30 o'clock, the defendant came to where Webb was living and said he had lost a key that Webb had given him and asked him for his key, and Webb loaned him the key, and defendant went into the room and was in there about 10 minutes. The defendant was seen by the elevator boy to pass the Navarre Flats that Sunday night near 11 o'clock going north on Baltimore avenue. A piece of paper was found in the room where the body of the deceased was, which corresponded in color to that torn from a shoe box found in the room occupied by the defendant. The evidence showed that the defendant had a small stove in his room, that fresh ashes were in the stove on the morning following the death of the deceased, that the bottom of a drawer in a dresser or washstand had been knocked out and burnt in the stove, and the defendant afterwards admitted that he burnt the leather pocketbook which he had taken from the deceased, in this stove. It was further developed in the testimony that on the Monday morning after the homicide, between 8 and 9 o'clock, the defendant bought him a suit of clothes, an overcoat, a hat, a pair of shoes, and some other wearing apparel, from a merchant by the name of Samuel Ginsberg, at 506 Walnut street, for which the defendant paid $27 or $28. At the time he paid for these goods, Ginsberg noticed that the defendant had several ten and twenty dollar bills. The defendant's brother testified that, on this same Monday morning, he met the defendant on Thirteenth street, and the defendant gave him $15, telling him to keep $10 and give $5 to his wife. Defendant left Kansas City Monday night at about 11 o'clock for his late home at Carrollton, Mo.

After the murder became known, two detectives and an inspector went to Carrollton, and early Wednesday morning, in company with the sheriff and two deputies of Carroll county, drove out into the country some 3½ miles to the home of the father of the defendant, reaching there about 5:30 in the morning. The officers inquired of the defendant's father whether the defendant was there, and the father replied that the boys were down town; but the officers searched the house and found the defendant and a brother of his sleeping in a back room with both doors locked. The defendant stated to the officers that he came from Kansas City four days before this...