State v. Hawkins
| Decision Date | 12 November 1942 |
| Docket Number | 38067 |
| Citation | 165 S.W.2d 644 |
| Parties | STATE v. HAWKINS |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
See Words and Phrases, Permanent Edition, for all other definitions of 'Corpus Delicti'.
See Words and Phrases, Permanent Edition, for all other definitions of 'Robbery in the First Degree'.
Roy McKittrick, Atty. Gen., and John S. Phillips, Asst. Atty Gen., for respondent.
BARRETT, Commissioner.
A jury found Amele Hawkins guilty of robbery in the first degree and fixed his punishment at five years in the penitentiary. He is not represented on this appeal, but an examination of the record reveals only one possible question, and that is whether there was sufficient competent evidence from which the jury might find him guilty as charged.
The state's evidence was that on October 13, 1940, Robert Campbell and his wife, Nellie, lived in a rear apartment at 4233 Easton Avenue in St. Louis. About 11 or 11:30 o'clock in the evening Nellie started to a confectionery for a coca-cola. Before she reached the street it was necessary for her to pass through a gangway which extended the length of the building. As she entered the way she saw a man and a woman standing in the passage drinking. As she stepped past them the woman said: 'Just a minute.' She stopped and as she turned around the man struck her in the stomach and she fell to the ground 'knocked out,' for a minute. As she fell she dropped her pocketbook and the woman picked it up. The pocketbook contained $ 4.50 in money. Nellie did not see the man and woman leaving but she could hear them running away.
Neighbors called her husband and he carried her back to their apartment and later she was taken to a hospital. The next day the police brought the defendant and Mary Sue Jones to her but she was unable to identify them as her assailants.
Two policemen, John McGrane and Louis Jones, testified that on the morning of October 14th they arrested the defendant as he sat outside a saloon at Pendleton Avenue and the Hodiamont tracks. Later they arrested Mary Sue Jones as she was returning to her home from the grocery store. The officers took them to the Campbells, who were unable to identify them as the persons in the gangway, and then to a police station. They said that Mary Sue Jones steadfastly denied participation in the offense charged, but that after some questioning Amele admitted that he and Mary Sue were drinking in the gangway when a woman came along and he struck her after Mary Sue called to her and that Mary Sue grabbed up her purse and they ran away. Mary Sue told him there was no money in the purse, however, and he did not get any money, although he did strike the woman.
Amele was the only witness in his own defense. In the first place he denied making the statements attributed to him by the officers. He said that the policemen took him to the basement in the police station and beat him and tried to force him to sign a written confession but he refused. He claimed he spent the night with two or three fellows at Pendleton and the Hodiamont tracks where he was arrested and that he was not near the Campbell's place of residence. On cross-examination he stated he knew Mary Sue Jones and Robert Campbell. Also he admitted three former felony convictions.
In rebuttal the policemen stated that they arrested Amele on information given them by Nellie's husband, Robert. They denied threatening, beating or mistreating him in any way and claimed his confession was voluntary.
Under this testimony the question of whether there was sufficient competent evidence to support Amele's conviction for robbery involves two problems: First, whether his confession was voluntary, and second, whether the evidence, independent of his confession, showed the crime of robbery in the first degree had been committed (the corpus delicti proved) by someone.
It follows as a matter of course that if the defendant's confession was not voluntary, that is, was obtained by threats or other various improper inducements, and certainly if obtained by beating the defendant and forcing him to admit the crime, such confession is not admissible in evidence against him and a conviction with such a confession in evidence could not stand. State v. Myers, 312 Mo 91, 278 S.W. 715; 20 Am.Jur., Secs. 480, 482. Here, however, the defendant denies ever having confessed participation in the crime. He says the officers beat him to make him sign a confession but he never signed a statement and in fact said they never offered him a writing to sign, because he said he would not sign one. He denied making the oral statements attributed to him by the policemen. When the officers testified to his confession there was no objection whatever by the defendant's counsel and the trial court submitted the voluntariness of his oral confession to the jury by an instruction which told them that if they found the defendant was caused to make the statements by violence inflicted upon him by the officers then such statements were not voluntary and were not admissible in evidence and could not be considered by the jury. Obviously, under this record, the confession was voluntary, as the jury found, and the trial court was not obliged to go into the matter any further or in any other manner than it did. State v. Gibilterra, 342 Mo. 577, 116 S.W.2d 88; State v. Meyer, 293 Mo. 108, 238 S.W. 457; 3 Wigmore, Evidence, Sec. 861.
The second problem is whether a conviction was had on the uncorroborated confession of the accused. If so the conviction may not stand because we have long followed the rule that the uncorroborated confession of the accused alone is not sufficient to support a conviction in a criminal case in addition to the accused's confession, there must be independent proof that the confessed and alleged crime was committed. That is, there must be proof, independent of the confession, of the corpus delicti. State v. Capotelli, 316 Mo. 256, 292 S.W. 42; State v. Willoby, Mo. Sup., 34 S.W.2d 7; 2 Wharton Criminal Evidence, Sec. 640. As Professor Wigmore suggests (7 Wigmore, Evidence, Sec. 2071), the rule was probably adopted in this country because of the statement in Greenleaf on...
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