State v. Crowell
| Decision Date | 09 May 1899 |
| Citation | 50 S.W. 893,149 Mo. 391 |
| Parties | STATE v. CROWELL. |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Appeal from circuit court, Barry county; J. C. Lamson, Judge.
Ed. Crowell was convicted of robbery, and he appeals. Reversed.
J. S. Davis and I. V. McPherson, for appellant. The Attorney General and Sam. B. Jeffries, for the State.
Defendant was indicted for robbery in the first degree, convicted, and his punishment assessed at five years' imprisonment in the penitentiary. There was testimony to warrant the verdict.
1. The first instruction given at the instance of the state was this: "The court instructs the jury that if you find and believe from the evidence in this case, beyond a reasonable doubt, that at the county of Barry, in the state of Missouri, at any time within three years next before the finding of the indictment herein, to wit, on the 21st day of October, A. D. 1897, the defendant, Edward Crowell, either alone or with another, in and upon witness J. A. Roller did make an assault, and any money of any amount or any value whatever of the property of witness J. A. Roller, from the person and against the will of said J. A. Roller, then and there, by force and violence to the person of said J. A. Roller, did rob, steal, take, and carry away, with a felonious intent to deprive the owner of his property, and to convert it to a use other than that of the owner or without his consent, and without any honest claim to it on the part of the taker, you will find the defendant guilty as charged in the indictment, to wit, of robbery in the first degree, and assess his punishment at imprisonment in the penitentiary for a term not less than five years." The following is the section under which the indictment is drawn: "Every person who shall be convicted of feloniously taking the property of another from his person, or in his presence, and against his will, by violence to his person, or by putting him in fear of some immediate injury to his person, shall be adjudged guilty of robbery in the first degree." Rev. St. 1889, § 3530. It will be noted that under this section robbery in the first degree may be perpetrated in either of two ways: First, by violence to the person; or, second, by putting such person in fear of some immediate injury to his person. The statute is in the disjunctive. State v. Broderick, 59 Mo. 318; State v. Stinson, 124 Mo. 447, 27 S. W. 1098. The indictment in this instance charges: "In and upon one James A. Roller unlawfully and...
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... ... Defendant testified that he was too intoxicated to remember what happened, and his doctors testified it was impossible to state the cause of death. Defendant was acquitted on each bill of indictment. It is [374 Pa. 573] obviously impossible to know on what ground the jury ... 1162; State v. Crowell, 149 Mo. 391 [50 S.W. 893]; Wharton, Criminal Pleading and Practice, (9th ed.) section 243; Com. v. Flaherty, 25 Pa.Super. 490; Hunter v. Com., 79 ... ...
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State v. Berkowitz, 30174.
...crime. There is nothing in the Taylor case to cast any doubt upon the correctness of Instruction 3, here complained of. In State v. Crowell, 149 Mo. 391, 50 S.W. 893, the other Missouri case cited by defendant, the trial court referred to the defense of alibi as "a well-worn defense." This ......
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State v. Smith
... ... that although an alibi may be a well worn defense, yet it is ... a legal one, to the benefit of which the defendant is ... entitled, etc." was prejudicial because it characterized ... an alibi as a "well worn" defense. State v ... Crowell, 149 Mo. 391, 50 S.W. 893. And see State v ... Shafer (Mo.), 108 S.W.2d 360; State v. Taylor, ... 118 Mo. 153, 24 S.W. 449. Moreover, the proffered statement ... in this case would have been erroneous if construed to place ... a burden of proving it upon defendant at the peril of ... ...