State v. Eddy

• Citation: 199 S.W. 186
• Decision Date: 04 December 1917
• Docket Number: No. 20350.,20350.
• Parties: STATE v. EDDY.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

199 S.W. 186

STATE v. EDDY.

No. 20350.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 2.

December 4, 1917.

Appeal from Criminal Court, Jackson County; Ralph S. Latshaw, Judge.

Minnie Eddy was convicted of robbery in the first degree, and she appeals. Affirmed.

Defendant was convicted in the, criminal court of Jackson county, for robbery in the first degree, for that, as it is charged in the information, she, together with Richard Kennedy, held up one W. H. Piggott, and took from a cash register in his drug store, some $25 or $26. After the conventional motions defendant appeals.

The information upon which defendant's conviction was had, omitting formal parts and signatures, which are not assailed and are conventional, reads, thus:

"Now comes Hunt C. Moore, prosecuting attorney for the state of Missouri, in and for the body of the county of Jackson, and upon his oath informs the court, that Richard Kennedy and Minnie Eddy, whose Christian names in full are unknown to said prosecuting attorney, late of the county aforesaid, on the 22d day of December, 1916, at the county of Jackson, state of Missouri, with force and arms, in and upon one W. H. Piggott unlawfully and feloniously did make an assault, and $26, lawful money of the United States, of the value of $26, the money and personal property of the said W. H. Piggott from the person and against the will of the said W. H. Piggott then and there, by force and violence to the person of the said W. H. Piggott and by putting the said W. H. Piggott in fear of an immediate injury to his person, feloniously did rob, steal and carry away; against the peace and dignity of the state."

The facts of the robbery alleged are few and simple, and run briefly thus:

On the evening of December 22, 1916, and about 8 o'clock, a man and a woman entered the drug store of W. H. Piggott, while Piggott was alone therein. The man pointed a pistol at Piggott and commanded him to raise his hands, and Piggott promptly complied. The man, later identified as one Richard Kennedy, then ordered Piggott to go behind the prescription case, and lie down, and added, with an oath, that if he opened his head he would blow it off. With these commands Piggott seems to have complied fully. Thereupon the defendant attempted to open the cash register, but was unable to do so. Kennedy then ordered Piggott to come and open this register, which he did, and thereafter, upon orders of Kennedy, Piggott again lay down behind the prescription case. Either Kennedy or the defendant took from the cash register $25 or $26. Neither Kennedy nor the woman was disguised; the store was well lighted at the time, and defendant is positively identified as being the same person who was present with Kennedy when the latter held up Piggott and robbed this drug store.

Upon cross-examination Piggott, the prosecuting witness, said that defendant did nothing, and did not say a word while the store was being robbed by Kennedy, but on Piggott's examination in chief, he succinctly states that she came into the drug store with Kennedy, and was there during the whole of the time of the robbery, and that she attempted to open the cash register, but was unable to do so. Again, Piggott, in reply to a question as to what the defendant did, said that she was trying to get the money out of the register.

When defendant was arrested she was found in a room with Richard Kennedy and some other men, whose names are not pertinent. While under arrest, and while she was preparing, at the request of the police officers who made the arrest, to accompany them to the station, she took from a dresser, which was in the room, a newspaper clipping and attempted to destroy it. When the officers interfered with this attempt she tried to swallow this clipping, which subsequently was found to be a clipping from a paper giving a report of the robbery of Piggott, and stating substantially that the person who assisted Kennedy in this robbery was a man disguised as a woman.

Neither defendant nor Kennedy testified upon the trial. Her defense, which she attempted to prove by her sister, a boarder, and a servant of her sister, was an alibi. Neither objections nor exceptions were made or taken to any instructions asked or given in the case, nor was there raised below, in a manner which will justify a review here, any question as to the testimony admitted on the part of the state, or refused on the part of defendant.

The jury found defendant guilty, and assessed her punishment at imprisonment in the state penitentiary for a term of five years.

E. E. Hairgrove, of Kansas City, for appellant. Frank W. McAllister, Atty. Gen., and George V. Berry, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

FARIS, J. (after stating the facts as above).

I. It is strenuously urged that there is a variance between the charge and the proof, in that the information herein charges a robbery by an assault and a taking of the property from the person of the prosecuting witness by putting him in fear of an immediate injury to his person; but...