State v. Griggs, 53948
| Decision Date | 13 October 1969 |
| Docket Number | No. 2,No. 53948,53948,2 |
| Citation | 445 S.W.2d 633 |
| Parties | STATE of Missouri, Respondent, v. John Wayne GRIGGS, Appellant |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
John C. Danforth, Atty. Gen., Gene E. Voigts, First Asst. Atty. Gen., Jefferson City, for respondent.
Lane Harlan, Boonville, for defendant-appellant.
J. R. Fritz, Sedalia, for defendant-appellant.
Defendant was prosecuted under the Second Offender's Act on a charge of robbery with a dangerous and deadly weapon. He was convicted by the jury and the judge fixed his punishment at twenty years imprisonment, after which he appealed. We affirm.
The sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the conviction is questioned. In determining this issue, we accept as true all the evidence in the record tending to show defendant's guilt, whether circumstantial or direct in nature, together with all favorable inferences reasonably drawn therefrom, and we disregard the evidence and inferences to the contrary. State v. Webb, Mo., 423 S.W.2d 795; State v. Sykes, Mo., 436 S.W.2d 32.
On July 13, 1967, Julius Fuqua, Larry Coleman, William Jones, and defendant Griggs met at a pool hall in Columbia. Something was mentioned about pulling a job. Subsequently, they spent some time at a cocktail lounge, after which Coleman borrowed a white Oldsmobile convertible from a girl friend and the four then drove to Boonville. Fuqua and Coleman suggested that they rob a small grocery store in Lone Elm, a nearby small community. They bought some vodka and soda at Boonville and then proceeded on to Lone Elm. They drove by the store, made a 'U' turn and then stopped in front of the store. Coleman was driving, and Jones, at the suggestion of Fuqua, was lying down in the back seat so that anyone noticing the car would observe only three people.
Fuqua and Griggs put silk stockings over their heads and then went up on the porch of the store. Fuqua rattled the door, causing the owner, Niubruegge, to come and open it. Fuqua entered the store and grabbed the owner. He also fired a gun which he was holding in his hand. Fuqua then placed the gun at Niubruegge's head, saying, 'I want your money.' They walked to the back of the store to the vault where Fuqua was handed a cigar box containing the owner's money.
Defendant Griggs had entered the store behind Fuqua. At Fuqua's direction, he went to the wall on the side of the store where he jerked the telephone off the wall, taking the receiver with him when he and Fuqua left.
Meanwhile, a Mr. Baker who lived on the other side of the street started to go to the store for some ice cream. As he looked across the street, he saw a white Oldsmobile convertible in front of the store and observed two men on the store porch. He watched the storekeeper open the door and the front man then enter and grab him. He also heard a shot fired. Baker told his wife to call the police and ran out of the house to get the license number of the car. However, when he observed a man sitting in the driver's seat, he turned around and went back to his house to make sure that hi wife had called the police. Meanwhile, Coleman, in the driver's seat, had observed Baker's actions and he honked the car horn at the people in the store. Shortly, they came out and reentered the car and it drove off at a fast pace.
At about that time, a Mr. Joe Davis drove up and heard Mr. Niubruegge calling out that he had been robbed. Davis asked Baker if the car which had just driven off was the one involved, and on being informed that it was, he then set out in pursuit of that car. He could see its taillights except when there was a dip in the road. At a 'T' intersection of Highways J and B, Davis found that the Oldsmobile convertible had failed to make the turn and had ended up in the ditch. Shortly thereafter, the sheriff and a highway patrolman arrived. Coleman was the only person in the Oldsmobile. He stated that the others had gotten away. Testimony of William Jones disclosed that they had climbed the fence and walked to a wooded area in which they had spent the night. The next day they started walking again and in the late afternoon the three of them were apprehended in fields in the vicinity of Prairie Home.
The storeowner was not asked at the trial to identify defendant as one of the men in the store when he was robbed. However, William Jones, one of the occupants of the Oldsmobile, testified for the state. He told of Fuqua and Griggs going into the store for the purpose of robbing the owner, and then coming out with Fuqua carrying the cigar box of money and Griggs holding the telephone receiver. Jones testified that shortly before the two went into the store, Griggs had said that he did not want to go ahead with the robbery but that when Fuqua stated he was going ahead anyway, Griggs then remarked that he might as well go on in with him. Both then put silk stockings over their heads and entered the store to rob it.
The evidence is sufficient to sustain the conviction. Defendant was positively identified as the man who went into the store with Fuqua on the mission of robbing the storeowner. The four men had discussed a robbery as they drove in the automobile and they had gone to the Lone Elm grocery for that purpose. Mr. Niubruegge testified that he was robbed at gunpoint and that the man accompanying the armed robber tore the telephone off the wall and took the receiver with him. When defendant Griggs came out of the store he was carrying that telephone receiver. Furthermore, Griggs fled in the car with the others and after the car was wrecked he fled on foot, eventually being captured in the company of Fuqua and Jones. The state also offered evidence of fingerprints of defendant, lifted from the outside of the window and vent of the door on the right-hand side of the Oldsmobile. There was substantial evidence to prove every element of the offense of which defendant was convicted.
Fuqua and Coleman, both serving sentences for this robbery after pleas of guilty, testified for the defendant. They stated that Griggs had passed out before the robbery and was asleep on the rear seat of the car. According to them, it was Jones, not Griggs, who accompanied Fuqua into the store. Furthermore, Fuqua testified that the purpose of the visit to the store was to buy more beer and that only as he entered the front door did he decide to rob the storeowner. However, it was for the jury to decide which of these conflicting stories to believe and which to disbelieve. Obviously, they believed the testimony of Jones and disbelieved the testimony of Fuqua and Coleman. It is true, as defendant points out, that Jones was an accomplice. However, the court properly instructed the jury with respect to the...
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...bounds of commenting on the credibility of defense witnesses. State v. Barron, 465 S.W.2d 523, 529(10) (Mo.1971); State v. Griggs, 445 S.W.2d 633, 636(2) (Mo.1969). The second comment defendant asserts was improper 'Now, you recall that when the husband said he came home that day, and this ......
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State v. Harper
...on the credibility of defendant's witnesses and the truth or falsity of their testimony from the state's point of view (State v. Griggs, 445 S.W.2d 633, 636(2) (Mo.1969)), and because, in the first instance, the control of arguments is a trial court function, appellate courts seldom display......
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