State v. Emmons

• Decision Date: 01 December 1920
• Parties: THE STATE v. CLAUD EMMONS, Appellant
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

225 S.W. 894

285 Mo. 54

THE STATE v. CLAUD EMMONS, Appellant

Supreme Court of Missouri, Second Division

December 1, 1920

Appeal from Butler Circuit Court. -- Hon. Herbert H. Freer, Judge.

Affirmed.

C. T Bloodworth and John A. Gloriod for appellant.

(1) Statements of a third person not in the presence of the accused are not admissible for any purpose. The State should not have been permitted to bring out such testimony under the guise that it was for the purpose of affecting the credibility of the witness. State v. Ethridge, 188 Mo. 352; State v. Newcomb, 220 Mo. 54. (2) When there is direct evidence of the guilt of the accused an instruction on circumstantial evidence should not be given. State v. Fairlamb, 121 Mo. 137; State v Donnelly, 130 Mo. 642; State v. Nerzinger, 220 Mo. 36; State v. Crom, 209 Mo. 316; State v Hubbard, 223 Mo. 80. (3) The court should have sustained appellant's motion for a new trial on the ground of newly discovered evidence, as the motion complied with all the requirements of the law in such cases. State v. Spiretus, 191 Mo. 41; State v. McLaughlin, 25 Mo. 111; State v. Murray, 91 Mo. 95; State v. Wheeler, 94 Mo. 252; State v. Bailey, 94 Mo. 315; Longdon v. Kelley, 51 Mo.App. 573; Bank v. Porter, 65 Mo.App. 448; Investment Co. v. Hoyt, 164 Mo. 140; Plumbing Co. v. Hugurin, 156 Mo.App. 68; Furniture Co. v. Inv. Co., 127 Mo.App. 312; Parker-Washington Co. v. Transit Co., 131 Mo.App. 508. (4) There is a variance between the information and the instruction in that the information charges the putting in fear of three separate persons and the instruction submits fear of immediate injury to only one of the three.

Frank W. McAllister, Attorney-General, and E. M. Tipton, of counsel, for respondent.

(1) "A wide range of cross-examination should be allowed to show the motive, interest or animus of the witness." State v. Babbitt, 242 Mo. 292; State v. Potts, 239 Mo. 412; State v. Deeker, 161 Mo.App. 398; State v. Steele, 226 Mo. 583; State v. Darby, 202 Mo. 150. (2) It is not reversible error to give an instruction on circumstantial evidence, where there is also direct evidence. State v. Fairlamb, 121 Mo. 137. (3) Cumulative evidence is not sufficient to grant a new trial on the grounds of newly discovered evidence. King v. Gibson, 206 Mo. 280; State v. Rockett, 87 Mo. 666; State v. Butler, 67 Mo. 63; Stahlman v. Rys. Co., 183 Mo.App. 144; Tatum v. Crescent Laundry Co., 201 Mo.App. 97. (4) Instruction 1 follows the information and it correctly defines the law of robbery in the first degree. R. S. 1909, sec. 4530.

OPINION

WILLIAMS, J.

Upon an information charging him with robbery in the first degree appellant was tried in the Circuit Court of Butler County, found guilty and his punishment assessed at twenty years' imprisonment. Defendant has duly perfected an appeal

A fair and concise summary of the testimony is found in the brief of the learned Attorney-General, from which we quote as follows:

"About eleven o'clock on the 13th day of June, 1919, the State Bank of Neelyville, a banking corporation, was robbed. Neelyville is a small town located in Butler County, Missouri, near the Arkansas line. At the time the robbery took place, Arthur W. Moore, cashier, H. W. McMullen, president, and E. W. Graves, a stockholder, were in the bank, where they had just completed a stockholders' audit of the bank. Moore, as cashier, was in charge of the bank and its funds.

"When the robber came in the front door, Moore, thinking he was a customer, started towards the front of the building to wait upon him. As Moore looked up he saw two big guns in the hands of the robber pointed at him. He made Mr. Graves get the money out of the cash drawer; and Mr. Moore was forced to open the safe. He took all the paper money in the bank, stuffing it around his waist beneath his shirt. About this time R. M. Abernathy came in the bank and he, too, was covered with the guns and told to take his position with the other men against the wall. The robber made his escape out of the back door and thence through a field into the woods about a half mile way. By auditing the books again, it was found that the robber had taken $ 2823.

"On June 19, 1919, six days later, the defendant was arrested in the City of St. Louis, and it was found that he was going under the assumed name of William Harding. On his person were found two bank books. One was a bank book of the Baden Bank, where he had on deposit $ 1360, and the other was a bank book of Broadway Trust Company, where he had on deposit $ 800. The money in both banks the defendant admitted he deposited under the name of Jones A. Brenton. He had made the deposit on Monday, June 16th, 1919, just three days after the bank robbery. There was also found upon defendant about $ 100 in currency. The defendant was positively identified as the robber by witnesses, Moore, Abernathy, McMullen, and Graves.

"The defense was an alibi. A short time before the trial the appellant had been discharged from the army. On Thursday preceding the robbery on Friday, appellant came from St. Louis to his mother's home, which was a few miles south of Neelyville, in the State of Arkansas. His mother, his younger brother, and a hired farm-hand who was working for his mother, testified that he was home all day Friday, the day of the robbery. His mother testified on cross-examination that the appellant had left with her a money belt containing a large sum of money on Saturday, the day after the robbery, while he went to Reyno. Appellant testified that he won this money by gambling in St. Louis. He further explained that he went under assumed names, because it had been reported to him that he was wanted in Arkansas for horse-stealing, and for this reason his mother had written him under assumed names. On Sunday, about midnight, appellant testified, he took the train from Neeleyville for St. Louis. Witnesses were introduced showing that appellant's reputation was good, but this was based largely upon knowledge that the witnesses had prior to the time appellant went to the army."

I. Defendant's mother testified on behalf of defendant. Upon her direct examination she testified that her son was at her home the entire day upon which the bank robbery occurred and that he left her home two days later for St. Louis. During the cross-examination of this witness the State was permitted to show by her that four days after the robbery she wrote a letter to her son (then in St. Louis) under the name of William Harding in which she said: "I met Gosharn when I went to Moark and he was asking about Claud [the appellant] and I told him he had went to the Kansas wheat fields."

It is contended by appellant that the court erred in permitting the cross-examination to take such a wide range and erred more particularly in permitting the State to prove that in the letter she had made the contradictory statement about her son's whereabouts shortly after the robbery.

We are unable to agree with appellant in his present contention. It is difficult to lay down a hard-and-fast rule concerning the proper scope of cross-examination. In the case of State v. Decker, 161 Mo.App. 396, 398, 143 S.W. 544, the general rule is stated as follows: "A wide range of cross-examination should be allowed to show motive, interest or animus of the witness."

In the instant case, the letter written by the mother and sent to her son under an assumed name disclosed a rather clever device for the accomplishment of one of two things, viz either to convey information to her son whom she knew to be then in hiding or else to mislead the authorities who might intercept the mail. In either event it shows an attempt to aid the flight of the defendant and throws necessary light upon the interest taken by the witness in protecting the defendant. It was therefore clearly admissible upon the question of the interest of the witness. Whether it was admissible for additional reasons it becomes unnecessary...