State v. Deckard
| Decision Date | 25 March 1931 |
| Docket Number | 30918 |
| Citation | 37 S.W.2d 414 |
| Parties | STATE v. DECKARD |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Stratton Shartel, Atty. Gen., and Carl J. Otto, Asst. Atty Gen., for the State.
Charged with burglary and larceny, appellant was convicted, upon trial in the circuit court of Webster county, of grand larceny, and duly sentenced to three years' imprisonment in the penitentiary, and he appeals. Appellant has filed no brief in this court, and we look to his motion for new trial for the alleged errors for which he seeks reversal. The only complaint so preserved in that motion as to present it for review is the alleged insufficiency of the evidence.
The state introduced evidence, tending, and, if believed by the jury, sufficient, to show the following: One Dave Ellis was engaged in the produce business, including the buying and shipping of eggs, at Seymour, a small town or village in Webster county. On March 21, 1930, he partially loaded with eggs for shipment a freight car standing on the team track of the 'Frisco' railroad. The last truck load of eggs that day was loaded into the car about 5:30 or 6 o'clock p. m., and the car, containing 298 cases, was then sealed. On the following morning it was discovered that during the night the car had been broken into and that 84 cases of eggs had been taken therefrom. From certain tracks on the ground at and about the car, not made by the truck used in loading, and not there on the previous evening, it appeared that during the night a truck had been backed up to the car on the side on which the seal was found broken.
Defendant at that time owned a practically new Chevrolet truck with unpainted pine upright slats. The sides, and slats, which, when used, inclosed the bed, were removable so as to leave the bed of the truck flat. A truck, unattended and empty, answering the description of the one owned by defendant, had been seen standing on the side of a street in Seymour about midnight or March 21st. About 3 o'clock in the morning of the 22nd, a truck loaded with boxes covered with a khaki colored sheet stopped in front of a lunchroom near the western outskirts of Seymour, and the men in charge of it (number not shown) called the lunchroom attendant out of bed in order to procure lunches. The attendant did not recognize defendant as one of the men he saw that night, 'did not believe he was one of them.' The truck was headed west, and left the town going westward.
The stolen eggs were traced to Mount Vernon in Lawrence county fifty miles or so west of Seymour and thence to Aurora. About 4:30, or a little before daybreak, on the morning of March 22d, a witness passed a Chevrolet truck similar in description to defendant's, which apparently had broken down and been unloaded on the highway about nine miles east of Mount Vernon. It was headed west. Its load, which witness said was composed of egg cases, had been stacked on the ground at the roadside. Witness saw but one man with the truck who was sitting in the cab, and whom he did not recognize. A little later, and soon after daylight that morning, witness Starbuck, who lived 150 or 200 yards east of the point where the truck had been unloaded, saw it there from his residence. He and one Stine identified defendant at the trial as one of the men then with the truck. Starbuck testified that shortly after daylight on the morning of March 22d, when he had just arisen, defendant, then a stranger to him, but whom he recognized and identified at the trial, came to his house and said that his truck had broken down, and asked to borrow a brace and bit and a piece of timber. Starbuck could see the truck in the road. He told defendant to go back of the house and find the timber while he (Starbuck) put on his shoes. When Starbuck came out, defendant had found a suitable piece of oak wood, and was given a brace and bit, with which articles he went back to the truck. Starbuck identified at the trial by a certain notch a piece of oak which had been shown to him on the day of defendant's preliminary hearing as part of the stick of wood defendant had procured from him. On the day of the preliminary hearing it was in the framework of a truck pointed out to the witness by a deputy sheriff who, however, was dead at the time of the trial, so that it could not be shown positively that the truck pointed out to Starbuck was defendant's. Starbuck was not permitted to testify what the deputy had told him as to whose truck it was. Testimony offered by defendant seemed to assume, but did not show, that it was defendant's, and tended to show that there was no oak piece in it at the time of the preliminary nor at any time. When Starbuck, from his house, saw the truck in the road, it had been unloaded. He could see boxes stacked on the ground, but could not give a description of the truck.
Witness Stine saw the truck at the point in the road designated by Starbuck between 6 and 7 o'clock on the morning of March 22d. The description given by him corresponds with that of defendant's truck. There appeared to be something wrong with it, and Stine assumed the bed had come loose. Its load egg cases, had been removed and stacked at the roadside. There were two men then with the truck. One of them was under it trying to lift the bed, and he said they had broken down. ...
To continue reading
Request your trial