State v. Hayes
| Decision Date | 10 March 1980 |
| Docket Number | No. 10774,10774 |
| Citation | 597 S.W.2d 242 |
| Parties | STATE of Missouri, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Thomas Eldon HAYES, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | Missouri Court of Appeals |
John D. Ashcroft, Atty. Gen., Steven D. Steinhilber, Asst. Atty. Gen., Jefferson City, for plaintiff-respondent.
John Newberry, Springfield, for defendant-appellant.
Defendant Thomas Eldon Hayes was found guilty by a Greene County jury of receiving stolen property (§ 560.270, RSMo 1969) and his punishment assessed at three years imprisonment. In this appeal he seeks reversal of the judgment entered on the jury's verdict, contending his motion to suppress statements he made to officers should have been sustained because he was not given Miranda warnings and that evidence obtained as a result of his statements was unconstitutionally tainted and should not have been admitted at trial. Also, that the state's evidence was insufficient to support his conviction and that instructional errors were committed by the trial court. We affirm.
Defendant was initially charged in this case in a two-count information, both alleging he received stolen property. The first count involved a Hydra-Sport boat, a 150 h.p. Mercury outboard motor, an Easy Trail boat trailer, and a Shakespeare trolling motor. The second count involved a 1973 Ranger boat, a 1973 model 85 h.p. Mercury outboard motor, a boat trailer, and a Motor Guide trolling motor. The trial court granted defendant's motion for severance
of the two counts and trial was held on count one. 1
Defendant's motion to suppress his statements to investigating officers and tangible evidence obtained by the officers as a result of his statements, was two-pronged. He alleged that the failure of the officers to give him the warnings required by Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), rendered his statements involuntary and tainted the tangible evidence under Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963). He also averred the statements and resulting evidence were obtained by fraud and deceit of the officers.
The trial court, following an evidentiary hearing, overruled defendant's motion. In this appeal defendant has abandoned the fraud and deceit allegation but pursues the lack of Miranda warning. He contends that because the officers knew or suspected he had received stolen property that the focus of investigation was on him as a suspect, and, therefore, Miranda warnings were necessary. The state admits that the investigating officers did not give defendant Miranda warnings but says the warnings were not required because his statements did not result from a custodial interrogation but resulted from a routine investigation. Furthermore, the state says, the focus of the officers' investigation was not on the defendant as a suspect and, conversely, the officers thought defendant a possible victim of a crime.
During the night of May 30, 1975, a bass boat rig, consisting of a 1975 Hydra-Sport boat, a 1975 model 150 h.p. Mercury outboard motor, a Shakespeare trolling motor, a 1975 Easy Trail boat trailer, a depth finder, batteries, fishing rods and tackle, was stolen from the Greenfield Marine and Tackle Company at Greenfield, Missouri. The value of the rig at the time of the theft was approximately $6,000.
Detective Whitlow of the Greene County Sheriff's Office and Missouri State Water Patrolman Swineburg were investigating this theft 2 and in December 1975 Detective Whitlow obtained information that a stolen bass boat rig had been parked behind Lacey's Garage at Republic, Missouri. The two officers went to Republic on the morning of December 10, 1975, to investigate. Fred Lacey told the officers that when he came to work one morning in early October he had found the boat sitting behind his garage. The boat was covered with a boat cover Lacey recognized as belonging to Bob Rantz. Later that day, Lacey received a telephone call from Rantz's wife. Mrs. Rantz told him that Ronald Bass had stolen the rig and that Lacey should not worry about it because it would be gone sometime that day. Lacey said the rig was thereafter picked up by a man named Tom Hayes of Springfield.
The officers drove to Springfield to defendant's place of business, Hayes Vending Service. Detective Whitlow told defendant his name, that he was a detective with the sheriff's department, and displayed his badge and official identification. Whitlow then introduced Patrolman Swineburg and as this officer started to show his identification, defendant said:
In defendant's private office, Detective Whitlow told defendant they had information he had picked up "this boat" at Lacey's; that the officers wanted to look at the boat because a boat of that description Detective Whitlow thanked defendant for his time and as they were leaving, Whitlow told him that "if he had knowledge of where this boat was and me advising him that it was a stolen boat at that time, that he should tell us, that he could be arrested if he had knowledge and refused to let us know."
had been stolen in Dade County. Defendant told the officers the following:
The two officers had been gone about an hour when they were notified defendant wanted them to return to his place of business to talk to them. When they arrived, defendant told them he had the boat and would show it to them. He said that about two days after he had picked up the rig at Republic, a woman he did not know appeared at his office to collect for the boat and he had his wife pay the woman $3,200 in cash but no receipt was taken.
Defendant accompanied the officers to his farm where the rig was stored in a barn. The manufacturer's serial number on the transom of the fiber glass boat, impressed into the boat when it was constructed, had been obliterated by cutting and gouging and a counterfeit metal tag, with purported serial numbers stamped thereon, had been placed over the area where the original number had been. Efforts had also been made to destroy the serial numbers on the outboard motor. A metal piece affixed to the outside of the motor had been ground or filed in such a fashion as to eliminate the original numbers and counterfeit numbers stamped thereon. A small metal plate with counterfeit numbers had been riveted on the outside of the motor. Manufacturer's numbers stamped into the block of the motor had been chiseled or cut out. A metal plate attached to the trailer and bearing identification numbers had been removed from the trailer. The depth finder which had been in the boat when it was stolen was still in the boat, but defendant told the officers it belonged to him.
Defendant produced an application for Missouri titles for the boat and motor which he had signed as owner. The application form was typed. Original titles in the name of "H & H Investment Company" were sought for the boat and motor, the form showing they were "never registered". In the space for Dealer Certification was typed "Mike Withers" of "Clinton, Kansas" but was not signed by "Mike Withers", nor notarized. Beneath this was typed: "This boat and motor came from out of state and has never been registered." 3 The application form described both the boat and outboard motor as being used 1974 models. The manufacturer's number for the boat followed the counterfeit number affixed to the transom, except for the omission of one number in the bogus series. The manufacturer's number for the motor showed the counterfeit numbers on the metal plate on the outside of the motor. 4
Defendant told the officers he had another boat, a Ranger, which he had purchased at Carl's Marine in Springfield. With defendant's permission, the Hydra-Sport boat rig was taken by the officers to the police laboratory in Springfield for examination for the true serial numbers. On January 14, 1976, Detective Whitlow received an informer's tip that a man from whom a stolen boat had been recovered had another stolen boat. A check was made with Carl's Marine to determine if defendant had purchased a Ranger boat there. The officer was told defendant had not. Through title applications on file with the Missouri Department of Revenue the officer learned defendant had received a Ranger boat and the application recited the seller was from Illinois, a non-title state. The same notary public had notarized the title application for the Ranger boat that notarized state's exhibit 12. The Ranger boat was located at defendant's lake property and the serial numbers on the boat and motor had been altered in the same fashion as those on the Hydra-Sport and Mercury motor. Defendant was then arrested.
The trial court correctly overruled defendant's motion to suppress his statements and the evidence which resulted from his statements was properly received at trial. Defendant's contention that he had become the "focus" of the officers' investigation lacks factual support and is irrelevant. The United States Supreme Court ruled in Beckwith v. United States, 425 U.S. 341, 96 S.Ct. 1612, 48 L.Ed.2d 1 (1976), that the...
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