State v. Cookson
| Decision Date | 14 November 1962 |
| Docket Number | No. 49202,No. 2,49202,2 |
| Citation | 361 S.W.2d 683 |
| Parties | STATE of Missouri, Respondent, v. John Frederick COOKSON, Appellant |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Morris A. Shenker, Murry L. Randall, St. Louis, for defendant-appellant.
Thomas F. Eagleton, Atty. Gen., Eugene G. Bushmann, Asst. Atty. Gen., Jefferson City, for respondent.
BARRETT, Commissioner.
John F. Cookson, with a prior felony conviction, has been found guilty of robbery in the first degree and sentenced to twelve years' imprisonment. Without regard to the appellant's connection with the offense, the basic facts are that on the 29th day of December 1960, as Mary and Gilbert Grieshaber, operators of Gip's Tavern, drove onto the parking lot at the rear of their tavern they were held up by masked gunmen and robbed of $6,000. The robbers escaped in a stolen automobile and the Grieshabers were unable to identify them or furnish clues as to their identity. Seven weeks after the robbery, on February 18, 1961, the appellant, his wife and his mother-in-law were arrested and finally the appellant was charged with the robbery.
The parties have briefed and argued two principal questions: (1) whether a second admission or confession by Cookson was voluntary or involuntary, and (2) whether certain evidence was obtained by an illegal search and seizure. But these problems, particularly the second, are bound up with and hinge upon another problem determinative of this appeal and, for that reason, it is not necessary to consider the assignments with respect to the admission or the search and seizure.
When the police came to the apartment at 5794 McPherson, rented by his mother-in-law and then occupied by the mother-in-law, the appellant, and his wife (they were in fact packed and in the process of moving to other apartments), they had no warrant for the arrest of anyone and of course did not have a search warrant. Furthermore, they had no information as to who may have held up and robbed the Grieshabers except for a tip from informers. Nevertheless, they arrested Cookson, his wife and his mother-in-law and searched the apartment. As to an anonymous informer, one of the officers said, 'I had received a This informer did not give the officer Cookson's address, he did give him a telephone number, presumably that of the mother-in-law. Subsequently, on cross-examination, this officer again told about the anonymous caller a week before the arrest and said that the call caused him to make further investigation. This time, he said, 'we talked to another informant' whose previous 'tips' had proved reliable, and the second informer said that Cookson and David Satterfield 'had held up the tavern at Second and Arsenal,' that they had a large sum of money and were spending freely. The second informer also gave the officer a telephone number and said 'they were living somewhere on McPherson.'
The police relied upon the anonymous telephone call and the tip from the informer as probable cause for arresting Cookson and the search of the apartment in which he may have had a room. Even upon direct examination the policeman stated that he did not 'wish' to disclose the name of his informant, that he considered the whole matter 'confidential.' On cross-examination defendant's counsel put the direct question: 'Officer, who was your second informant?' State's counsel objected that 'the Williams case' held that the officer did not have 'to disclose the confidential informant.' The court said, ...
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