State v. Edwards, 52068
| Decision Date | 09 December 1968 |
| Docket Number | No. 52068,No. 1,52068,1 |
| Citation | 435 S.W.2d 1 |
| Parties | STATE of Missouri, Respondent, v. James Dale EDWARDS, Appellant |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Norman H. Anderson, Atty. Gen., Jefferson City, Dennis J. Quillin, Special Asst. Atty. Gen., Clayton, for respondent.
J. Brendan Ryan, St. Louis, for appellant.
WELBORN, Commissioner.
This is an appeal by James Dale Edwards from a judgment and sentence of life imprisonment for murder in the first degree.
On February 23, 1965, Carol Sussex was found dead in her apartment in Edmundson Terrace, St. Louis County. Her half-clothed body was lying on a bed and a piece of electric lamp cord was wrapped around her neck. The investigation resulting in the discovery of the body began when Miss Sussex failed to report to work on the morning of February 23.
Police investigation revealed that, after work the preceding evening, Miss Sussex had gone to the Flaming Pit restaurant and cocktail lounge in the Village Square Shopping Center in Hazelwood. She arrived there at around 5:30 P.M. and met acquaintances from her place of employment. In the course of the evening at the Flaming Pit, Miss Sussex became acquainted with James Dale Edwards. When the bar closed, at around 10:00 P.M., Miss Sussex, Edwards and the bartender were the only persons remaining in the bar. Miss Sussex left the Flaming Pit shortly after the closing time and Edwards departed a few minutes after Miss Sussex had left. The two were seen together on the parking lot near the Flaming Pit shortly thereafter.
At around 6:00 P.M. on February 23, Edwards was taken to the St. Louis County Police Department Headquarters and questioned about his activity on the preceding evening. He told the questioning officer that he had met Miss Sussex at the Flaming Pit, but that he did not see her after she left the cocktail lounge after it closed. Sometime later in the evening, Edwards was identified in police line-ups as the person who had been seen with Miss Sussex at Luigi's restaurant. The two had arrived at the restaurant around midnight, eaten, and left after being there about an hour.
Upon being confronted by police officers with this identification, Edwards, at around 11:00 P.M. on February 23, after first denying any connection with the victim's death 'blurted out': On subsequent questioning that night, Edwards made contradictory statements about his involvement, but when he was either unable or unwilling to furnish the police with any details of the offense, Edwards was released with no charges being filed against him. There is some indication that, in the course of the evening, Edwards underwent a polygraph test at State Highway Patrol offices, but just what occurred is not clear.
At around midnight on March 3, Edwards was arrested by St. Louis County police officers and taken to police headquarters. There he was again questioned about the death of Miss Sussex. He at first denied that he had killed her, but, after about an hour's questioning, he admitted the killing and, at around 3:30 A.M., a court reporter was called to headquarters and a statement, in question and answer form, was taken from Edwards and reduced to writing. According to the statement, Edwards said:
He said that, after they had eaten at Luigi's, '(w)e got in and drove to her apartment in Bobbie Downs apartment buildings. We got to her front door and she said 'Good night' after she had unlocked the door. I shoved her inside the door and she turned around to push me back out. Then I grabbed her around the throat and started choking her and she struggled with me saying 'What for?' So I told her that I didn't care about anything any more and the reason I was going to kill her was because my wife was through with me so I wanted to end it all and in some ways hurt my wife a little more. We both struggled to the floor and she was almost completely unconscious so I grabbed a lamp cord and wrapped that around her throat until she was completely still. I then dragged the body into the bedroom and threw her on the bed, taking part of her clothes off to make it appear that she had been molested, then scattering her purse on the bathroom floor and taking her money to add a little more to the confusion.
'Then I immediately left and went out the front door and walked to my car and drove straight home and went to bed, and thought over everything that had happened knowing that since I was last seen with her in a public place I would eventually be caught.'
At the trial, the written statement was introduced in evidence and there was testimony about the defendant's previous oral admissions.
The case was submitted as one of murder in the first degree and the jury's verdict was guilty of that offense.
On this appeal, the first point of error relates to the giving of Instruction No. 3 which read as follows:
Appellant contends that the giving of this instruction was error because the instruction submits only an abstract statement of law and because it was totally unnecessary and served to confuse and mislead the jury. The objection that the instruction amounted to only an abstract statement of law does not appear in the motion for new trial and no such objection was otherwise made in the trial court. That objection is, therefore, not properly before us. State v. Demaree, Mo.Sup., 362 S.W.2d 500, 505(6--8), 17 A.L.R.3d 312.
As for the instruction being unnecessary, appellant states that the only issue was whether defendant was guilty of murder in the first degree or not. According to appellant, since no possible lesser offenses were involved, there was no issue as to intent. However, the court, in its verdict-directing instruction, defined 'wilfully' as 'intentionally, not accidentally.' That was an element of the offense which the state had to prove and it cannot be said that there was no issue of intent.
The appellant does not point out how the instruction might have been misleading or confusing. We conclude that no error has been shown to have been involved in the giving of this instruction.
Appellant's next assignment of error relates to the failure of the trial court to sustain the defendant's motion to suppress any statement made by him to the police. At the trial, defendant's counsel objected to the admission of statements of the defendant on the grounds that they were not voluntary and on the further grounds that the statements were obtained 'in violation of his constitutional rights as guaranteed by the State and Federal constitutions in that he was not represented by counsel at the time such statements were made, and was not properly advised of his right to counsel and was not permitted to consult with counsel prior to the making of such statements.'
At the trial and prior to any reference to the defendant's statements to police, a hearing was held by the court, outside the presence of the jury, on the voluntariness of the defendant's statements. The only evidence offered in such hearing was the testimony of two interrogating police officers. Both testified that at neither the February 23 nor March 3--4 interrogation was defendant threatened or coerced in any way, physically abused or promised leniency. The record is silent as to any warning which might have been given defendant about his rights in regard to such questionings. Following the hearing, the trial court overruled the motion to suppress.
On this appeal, appellant states that '(t)he Court erred in overruling objections of appellant on the admissibility of the alleged written and oral statements of appellant because of the failure of the police officers to advise appellant of his rights to counsel prior to making any statement and the trial court's failure to making (sic) a finding that the statements admitted in evidence were voluntarily made prior to their submission to the jury.'
This case was tried in December, 1965, and, therefore, predates Miranda v. State of Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694, 10 A.L.R.3d 974. It does not, as appellant contends, involve a situation fully comparable with that presented in Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U.S. 478, 84 S.Ct. 1758, 12 L.Ed.2d 977. There is no contention here that appellant, while in police custody, was denied the right to consult with counsel then present and available. See State v. Dixon, Mo.Sup., 411 S.W.2d 185, 186(1). 'Therefore, Escobedo and Miranda do not apply and the test which must be applied under the established Missouri law to the admissibility of defendant's statements is that of voluntariness, * * *.' State v. Dixon, supra, 411 S.W.2d 187(2, 3)....
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