State v. Harris, 46183
| Decision Date | 09 June 1958 |
| Docket Number | No. 2,No. 46183,46183,2 |
| Citation | 313 S.W.2d 664 |
| Parties | STATE of Missouri, Respondent, v. Robert HARRIS, Appellant |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Raymond A. Bruntrager, St. Louis, for appellant.
John M. Dalton, Atty. Gen., John W. Inglish, Asst. Atty. Gen., for respondent.
The defendant, Robert Harris, was found guilty of buying and receiving stolen property in violation of Section 560.270 RSMo 1949, V.A.M.S., and his punishment was assessed at six years in the penitentiary. Defendant's motion for a new trial was overruled and he had appealed.
The defendant, his wife, Jewel Harris, and his brothers Hosea Harris and Edward Ezra Harris, referred to in the evidence as Ezra Harris, were indicted jointly. The defendant, Robert Harris, was granted a severance; at his separate trial he did not testify or introduce any evidence in his behalf.
The evidence of the state tended to prove that during the early evening of November 9, 1955, the home of Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Johnson at 16 Portland Place in St. Louis was burglarized by William Topp. While the family was downstairs the thief entered through a second-story window. From an upstairs bedroom and locked closet he took and carried away a full-length mink coat, a mink stole, a diamond ring, two diamond bracelets, a pair of earrings, and a stickpin. The mink coat at the time of its purchase eight years previously cost $3,500 and the mink stole, purchased about 25 years before, cost $600 or $700. The diamond ring, approximately 13 to 14 carats in size, was valued between $25,000 and $30,000. There was some testimony that, assuming the diamonds to be of reasonably good quality, the bracelets 'would be in the twenty to twenty-five-thousand-dollar bracket.'
Topp, as a witness for the state, testified that he drove to the Johnson home in the automobile of Hosea Harris. He denied, however, that Hosea knew that he was going to rob the Johnson home. After stealing the jewels and furs, Topp carried them in the automobile to the home of Hosea Harris and left them with Mrs. Hosea Harris who, except for some of her children, was the only person there. He returned the next day and saw Hosea Harris at about 1:00 o'clock p. m., and again about 3:00 o'clock p. m. On November 11 Topp saw Hosea Harris at about 1:00 p. m. and again that evening between 7:00 and 7:30. On this last trip Topp received from Hosea Harris the sum of $4,000 consisting of twenty-eight $100 bills and the remainder of the amount in $20 bills. Topp was later arrested, released and again arrested on November 19, 1955, and held for investigation. In the early morning of November 20, Topp told the police that he had given the stolen articles to Ezra Harris.
Topp had known Robert Harris for a period of about eight years, but he did not tell the defendant that he intended to commit the burglary or that he had stolen the articles. He did not see Robert Harris until after the articles had been recovered on November 21, 1955. Robert Harris was arrested on Sunday, November 20, 1955, and taken to the office of the chief of detectives about 9:30 p. m. About 3:00 o'clock a. m. on November 21, after the defendant had been given a lie detector test, he was told by the police that up to that time the investigation showed he was not involved. However, he was also told that his home and the homes of his brothers were going to be searched under a warrant; that Ezra Harris had been given a lie detector test; that he, Ezra, had said that he had had the stolen articles and after negotiating a sale for them had given them back to Hosea.
The stolen property was insured and the state's evidence tended to show that while he was being questioned in the office of the chief of detectives a suggestion was made to the defendant 'along the lines' that if the stolen property was recovered by him he would receive a reward. This suggestion was made more than once by the police officers interrogating the defendant. The defendant requested that he be permitted to talk privately with his brothers, Hosea and Ezra, who also were being held at the police station, and he was permitted to do so. After he had talked to his brothers for about twenty minutes, the defendant told the police officers that he could get the stolen property back but it would take about $5,500 because it had been disposed of for that amount. This occurred about 3:30 a. m. on November 21st. The police arranged a meeting at the Boatmen's National Bank for 9:00 a. m. the same day, at which representatives of the insurance company were present. The defendant was taken to the meeting by Sergeant Grimes, attached to the Detective Bureau of the St. Louis Police Department. The representatives of the insurance company procured $5,500 in bills of $100 denomination, the serial numbers of which were recorded by officers of the bank. The defendant asked if the bills were marked and was told that they were not. He was not told that a record of the serial numbers had been made. Copies of the list of serial numbers were given to the representatives of the insurance company and eventually a copy was delivered to the police department.
At this meeting at the bank there was conversation to the effect that the defendant would act as courier for the insurance company in the recovery of the stolen articles, and things were said indicating that the insurance company might be grateful in a pecuniary way if the mission was successful. The $5,500 was delivered to the defendant and he gave a receipt to the representative of the insurance company reciting: 'Received from Elmer Rinderknecht the sum of $5500.00 in connection with the recovery of jewelry of Andrew W. Johnson, stolen on November 9, 1955.' The defendant then turned the money over to Sergeant Grimes.
Two police officers, Sergeant Grimes and Detective Spencer, then took the defendant to his home. After the police officers had been there for about 15 minutes they left and were absent for about 35 minutes. When they returned about 11:20 a. m., the defendant and his wife were there. At that time Sergeant Grimes turned the $5,500 in currency over to the defendant. Mrs. Harris left the house about 15 minutes later, or around 11:35. Thereafter the defendant received two phone calls, one at about 12 o'clock noon, during which the defendant was heard to ask, 'Was she followed?' After the second phone call, which was about 12:20 or 12:25 p. m., the defendant said, 'O.K., gentlemen, we can leave now.' The defendant and the two police officers drove to a bar at Euclid and Delmar where they stayed for about 25 minutes; then they drove to a filling station located at Walton Avenue and the Hodiamont street car tracks. The defendant gave Sergeant Grimes a key and told him to open the trunk of a 1955 blue Mercury parked on the filling station premises along with several other cars. There was no license tag on the Mercury automobile and Sergeant Grimes made a scratch mark with the key on the trunk of the car for identification purposes. Sergeant Grimes opened the trunk of the Mercury and took a suitcase from it. Upon opening the suitcase he found a full-length fur coat and a fur scarf, and in one of the pockets, wrapped in a pink tissue, was a ring set with a large stone and numerous unset smaller stones. The detective officers took the defendant and the recovered property to the office of the chief of detectives. The furs and jewels were identified at the trial as property stolen from the Johnson home.
The loose stones found in the Mercury consisted of two large emerald-cut diamonds, two large round-cut diamonds and about 330 small diamonds. The small stones weighed a total of about 18 carats and the larger stones about two and one-half to three carats each. The total value of the loose stones was estimated at $18,000.
Shelton Loeper, the owner of the filling station, testified that the defendant, accompanied by another person not further identified, drove the 1955 Mercury to the filling station between 8:00 and 9:00 a. m. on the morning of November 21st. When the car was driven in there was a state license plate on it. The keys were left in the car because it was put on the wash rack and thereafter moved to the rear of the station.
On November 23, 1955, police officers searched the defendant's home pursuant to a search warrant and in a bureau drawer found two small diamonds about 6/100ths of a carat in size, wrapped in tissue, and estimated to be worth $15 to $18 apiece. A diamond expert testified these stones were similar to some of the loose diamonds recovered in the trunk of the Mercury, but also testified they were similar in size and shape to millions of other diamonds in existence in the United States. At the time the search was made Sergeant Grimes saw in the rear of defendant's home the Mercury automobile which he identified as the one from which the stolen property was recovered.
On November 11, 1955, Jewel Harris, accompanied by her husband, borrowed from A. & L. Dunn Company the sum of $4,750, pledging as security three articles of jewelry not connected with the burglary. Jewel Harris was alone on November 21, 1955, when she repaid the loan with interest. The currency use to repay the loan and interest was identified by its serial numbers as part of the money secured from the Boatmen's Bank and given to the defendant for use in recovering the stolen property.
The defendant presents for review 17 allegations of error. The first and the third have the same basis. The defendant first attacks the sufficiency of the indictment on the ground that it fails to allege that he received the stolen property with an intent to defraud. He further contends the state's main instruction is reversible erroneous for failure to submit the issue of intent to defraud.
The indictment in substance charges the defendant and his co-indictees with the offense of 'feloniously and fraudulently' buying and receiving the...
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