State v. Conroy

• Decision Date: 01 December 1914
• Docket Number: 12269.
• Citation: 82 Wash. 417,144 P. 538
• Parties: STATE v. CONROY.
• Court: Washington Supreme Court

144 P. 538

82 Wash. 417

STATE v. CONROY.

No. 12269.

Supreme Court of Washington

December 1, 1914

Department 2. Appeal from Superior Court, King County; J. T. Ronald Judge.

Joseph Conroy was convicted of robbery, and he appeals. Affirmed.

Longfellow & Fitzpatrick, of Seattle, for appellant.

John F Murphy and S. H. Steele, both of Seattle, for the State.

FULLERTON J.

Joseph Driscoll, Edward Rowan, and Joseph Conroy were jointly informed against, and jointly convicted of the crime of robbery, and severally sentenced to a term in the penitentiary. Conroy appeals.

The information upon which the accused were tried charged a robbery from the person of one Ernest B. Sather. At the trial the evidence on part of the state tended to show that at the time of the robbery Sather was in the company of one Hendrickson, that both were assaulted, and property taken by the accused from the person of each of them. This property was in part found on the person of Conroy after the arrest of the accused, and in part found in the bed of the patrol wagon in which the accused were carried from the place of arrest to the police station. Hendrickson was not present at the trial having left the state some time after the robbery without the knowledge of the prosecuting officers. The state, on the identification of Sather, was permitted to introduce in evidence certain property as property taken from the person of Hendrickson. This is assigned as error for two reasons First, because there was not a sufficient identification of the property; and, second, because the accused were not charged with the robbery of Hendrickson.

As to the first objection, we think, without reviewing the evidence in detail, that the identification, when taken with the surrounding circumstances, was sufficiently complete to permit its introduction. It is true, as the appellant says, Sather's knowledge as to Hendrickson's possession or ownership of the property was somewhat meager; but it is the guilt of the accused that the state must prove beyond a reasonable doubt, not each separate circumstance, or item of evidence, properly to be shown to make out such guilt.

The second objection is equally without merit. The robbery of both Sather and Hendrickson was but one transaction, and under the almost universal rule the entire transaction can be shown in a prosecution for the robbery of either of them. The rule is not changed because the evidence may show offenses capable of separation and prosecution as independent crimes. Evidence relevant to the crime charged is not inadmissible because it may tend to show the commission of another and independent crime. Blanton v. State, 1 Wash. 265, 24 P. 439; State v. Craemer, 12 Wash 217, 40 P. 944; State v. Hyde, 22 Wash. 551, 61 P. 719; State v. Norris, 27...