State v. Cobb

• Decision Date: 23 December 1969
• Citation: 266 A.2d 393,159 Conn. 31
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE of Connecticut v. Grady COBB.

Page 393

266 A.2d 393

159 Conn. 31

STATE of Connecticut v. Grady COBB.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Dec. 23, 1969.

Herbert J. Bundock, Public Defender, for appellant (defendant).

Joseph T. Gormley, Jr., State's Atty., for appellee (state).

Before KING C.J., and ALCORN, HOUSE, THIM and RYAN, JJ.

HOUSE, Associate Justice.

Upon a trial to a jury the defendant was found guilty of the crime of robbery with violence. The court denied the defendant's motion to set aside the verdict as contrary to law and against the evidence. From the judgment rendered on the verdict the defendant has appealed. Assigning error in the court's denial of the motion and error in a ruling, preliminary to the admission into evidence of certain statements made by the defendant, that the defendant had been adequately advised of his constitutional rights before questioning by the police.

The denial of the defendant's motion to set aside the verdict is tested in the light of the evidence printed in the appendices to the briefs. State v. Mortoro, 157 Conn. 392, 393, 254 A.2d 574; State v. Gyuro, 156 Conn. 391, 397, 242 A.2d 734, cert. denied, 393 U.S. 937, 89 S.Ct. 301, 21 L.Ed.2d 274. In his assignments of error and in his brief, the defendant has specifically limited his claim with respect to insufficiency of the evidence to a claim that the state did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was the person who held up and robbed a gasoline station attendant.

The appendix to the state's brief properly discloses in detail the evidence which the jury had for consideration in determining the question of the guilt of the defendant. There was evidence that shortly after 2 a.m. on March 9, 1968, a black Oldsmobile operated by a male Negro drove into a Stamford gasoline station manned by David Peterson. The driver, after asking for gasoline, held a knife to Peterson's back and directed Peterson to go to the office. At that time a woman came from the automobile, entered the station and ordered Peterson to turn over whatever money was in the cash register. Peterson handed over the contents of the cash register, and the man and the woman left in the Oldsmobile, which Peterson noted bore Connecticut registration number FE 2298. The lighting in the station was good, with lights over the gas pumps, four large spotlights and lights in the station office. Shortly after 2 a.m. Peter J. Barney, a sergeant in the Stamford police department, alerted to be on the lookout for a black Oldsmobile with FE 2298 registration plates, observed the car and chased it at a high rate of speed until it crashed into a fence at a corner. Two Negro males fled from the car leaving two women in it. Shortly thereafter another officer, who had been given a description of the driver of the car by the officer who had pursued it, arrested the defendant in the vicinity of the accident. At the trial, the victim, Peterson, identified the defendant as the man who had held him up at knife point at the gasoline station.

With this evidence for their consideration the jury were amply justified in finding that the state had proved the guilt of the defendant beyond a reasonable doubt.

The only remaining assignment of error relates to an evidential ruling of the court. After the defendant was arrested, he was taken to the police station. At a preliminary hearing in the absence of the jury, Sergeant Barney and Frank Phillips, a Stamford police officer, testified that the defendant was there informed by Lieutenant Considine (who was out of the state at the time of the trial) of his constitutional rights and that he did not have to make any statement, that he had the right to make a phone call, that he did not have to say anything without a...