State v. Carroll
| Citation | 62 S.W.2d 863,333 Mo. 558 |
| Decision Date | 12 August 1933 |
| Docket Number | 32814 |
| Parties | The State v. Amos Carroll, Appellant |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of Missouri |
Appeal from Circuit Court of City of St. Louis; Hon. Wilson A Taylor, Judge.
Affirmed.
Roy McKittrick, Attorney-General, and James L. HornBostel Assistant Attorney-General, for respondent.
The defendant was indicted for murder in the city of St. Louis, the charge being that he shot with a pistol and killed Roy Clark. On a trial the jury found him guilty of murder in the first degree and fixed the punishment at death. He has appealed as a poor person, filing no brief in this court. It appears from the record all the parties figuring in the homicidal event were negroes. There are two motions for a new trial, one filed within four days after the verdict by the attorneys who represented the defendant in his trial; and another filed seven days after the verdict by a new attorney. The assignments in these will be taken up in the course of the opinion.
The evidence for the State was that about seven-thirty o'clock in the evening of May 12, 1930, the defendant went to the home of his cousin, Ida Griffin and sought to borrow her "gun" until nine o'clock. It was a pistol which she and her husband had had for fourteen years. She customarily kept it under her pillow and it was there that morning when she made the bed. The defendant often called on her. She asked him what was the matter. He inquired if she had any coffee -- the defendant was a great coffee drinker. She, the witness, said she would go to the kitchen and see. When she returned the defendant was gone and so was the pistol. The pillow had been turned back. When she had left the room it was "straight." Later that evening some policemen brought the pistol to her and asked her if it was hers. She identified it then as she did at the trial. She could recognize it by the handle and a little dark place on the top part.
Jesse Condrey testified that between seven and seven-thirty in the evening on the date of the homicide, May 12, he and his wife were sitting on the front steps of the house at 1022-A North Nineteenth Street in St. Louis, where they had their home upstairs. It was about dusk. A man came out of the alley, crossed the street, and walked up the front steps at No. 1020 where the deceased Clark lived, which was twelve or fifteen feet away from where the witness was sitting. The man had a revolver up his shirt sleeve, with the barrel projecting down into his left hand and a short string "pulled out that way." He knocked at the door and it was opened by someone. In about half a minute he fired three shots while he was standing on the threshold or just inside, so the flashes of fire could not be seen by the witness. In crossing the street the man had walked a little obliquely but still was facing the witness, with left arm toward him, and Condrey identified the defendant as being the man whose movements he had described, though he had never seen him before the homicide. The defendant came back out the door right after the shooting as the smoke from the pistol was floating out.
In a few minutes a crowd congregated and the police arrived. They took Condrey, the witness, into the Clark home where the deceased was lying on his back with his feet close to the door. Thence, the witness testified, he was taken to the police station where he made a statement substantially the same as the testimony he gave at the trial.
Mozella Condrey, wife of the previous witness, Jesse Condrey, described the shooting substantially as her husband had done, except she did not see the defendant come out the door thereafter. She thought he might have left by the back way. When the shooting occurred she began "hollering." She identified the defendant as the killer. On cross-examination she said the defendant was standing on the steps when he shot, and that she saw the flashes of fire; also she thought the defendant had the handle of the pistol, not the barrel, down in his hand.
Landa Merritt was the common-law wife or housekeeper of the deceased Roy Clark. She had been living with him about two weeks. At the time of the shooting she was in the kitchen. She heard the shots but didn't see who fired them.
Dee Rankin was in the room with Clark. Someone knocked and Clark opened the door. The defendant stepped in the doorway and said "Roy, you ain't going to pay me," or, as the witness put it a little later the defendant asked "whether he was going to pay him." Clark answered, "Yes, what is the matter, come on in the house." The defendant responded "No, you ain't going to pay me," and commenced shooting. The witness did not see the pistol until the shooting began. He saw Clark fall, from where he stood holding to the door, to a position with his feet toward the door. These questions and answers then appear in the transcript:
The testimony of the three police officers who went to the scene of the homicide and later arrested the defendant added nothing material to the facts as already stated, except this. The defendant having disappeared, the police went to the home of his counsin, Ida Griffin, the State's first witness, where he had got the pistol, and found the weapon in the hallway. From there they went to an address on Olive Street, apparently some distance away, and found the defendant. He told the officer his name was Williams. The officer threatened to take him to the place where he worked and find out his true name, whereupon the defendant admitted his name was Amos Carroll. The officer further asked the defendant "if he shot that man," and the defendant countered, "Is the man dead?" The officer questioned, "What man?" and the defendant replied, "Well I hope he dies, because I meant to kill him."
The body of the deceased Clark was taken to City Hospital No. 2 in St. Louis. Dr. Weathers, a physician and surgeon there made a superficial examination and found death apparently had been caused by a "gun shot wound below the tip of the left ear."
The defendant testified he had known the deceased Clark for about three years. He said in March, before the killing in May, Clark was in destitute circumstances and came to live with him. During that time the deceased hurt his back and the defendant furnished the money for two days' medical treatment and supported him and his children until the latter part of April when Clark left. In the meantime Clark had got a job the first of that month. He was to pay the defendant six dollars per week for board and room but he did not pay it. Altogether Clark owed him about forty-five dollars. About two weeks later the defendant saw Clark and the latter "dunned himself," and said he would go to the place where he was living and get some money to apply on defendant's bill. The defendant waited a while and Clark did not appear, so later that same evening he went twice to Clark's house, where he was rebuffed by the women folks and told Clark was not there. The defendant then sued Clark and garnished his wages.
On the evening of May 12 he went to Clark's home about 6:20. He did not see the two Condreys sitting on the steps next door. The witness Dee Kankin was not in the room with Clark as Rankin had testified. The defendant knocked on the door. Clark opened it. The defendant said: "What are we going to do about my money, boy I needs it." Clark cursed him and said, "Didn't you stop my pay check last week?" Then he threw his hand behind him toward his hip pocket and the defendant shot him, thinking Clark was about to do him great bodily harm, as he had sometime previously threatened to do. The defendant then told about leaving the scene of the homicide and of his subsequent arrest. He denied having told the officer his name was Williams or Baker, or that he meant to kill Clark. On the contrary he declared he gave his true name and stated he had shot Clark to protect himself.
On cross-examination the State's counsel asked him if he brought "this pistol," apparently referring to the weapon previously introduced in evidence, to Clark's house, and the defendant answered "Brought that pistol I had it in my pocket." Then he said he started with "a pistol" to the home of a friend, intending to borrow some money on it for eight or ten days. On the way it occurred to him he might get Clark to pay him two or three dollars on account, so he went by Clark's home without any intention of using the weapon. He used it after he got there because of...
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