State v. Hedges
| Decision Date | 03 June 1927 |
| Docket Number | 27866 |
| Citation | 295 S.W. 575 |
| Parties | STATE v. HEDGES |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Harry Jones, of St. Louis, for appellant.
North T. Gentry, Atty. Gen., and David P. Janes, Asst. Atty. Gen for the State.
The information filed March 13, 1927, in the circuit court of the city of St. Louis charges defendant and one Lee Chaney with burglary in the second degree and grand larceny. Jointly tried to a jury, a verdict returned found each guilty of grand larceny only, assessing the punishment as to defendant at imprisonment in the penitentiary for a term of two years. Defendant alone appealed from the judgment and sentence.
The evidence for the state tends to show that one Harry Palonia owned and operated a restaurant and soft drink parlor at 4100 North Second street, in the city of St. Louis. On Sunday February 28, 1926, between the hours of 8 and 10 at night there was a breaking into and entering the restaurant and the taking of a flash light, toy revolver, cigars, cigarettes, tobacco, and money, the property of Palonia, aggregating in value the sum of $ 75.85. Upon information to the police by Palonia that he suspected Chaney, the police subsequently arrested him. Chaney, upon being interrogated at the station, confessed and implicated defendant. Upon information received from Chaney, the toy revolver and the flash light were found at his home, and cigars, cigarettes, and tobacco at the home of his father. Defendant was then arrested. He directed the police to a grip in his home which contained cigars, cigarettes, and tobacco. He confessed that such property was his share of the night's adventure, and that Chaney loaned him the grip, in which it was cached, to move it from his room. Other pertinent facts, if any, will later appear.
Four assignments of error are urged. The first maintains that the uncorroborated testimony of one of several police officers present during the confession, without the other police officers testifying in corroboration, is of insufficient probative force to support a verdict of guilty. The second holds that the failure to prove that the property found at defendant's home was the identical property taken from the restaurant requires defendant's discharge. The third charges that the confession of defendant is not of sufficient probative force on which to base a conviction. The fourth avers that the state's uncorroborated evidence is not of sufficient weight to sustain the conviction.
I. The first and third assignments are substantially of the same import and are based upon the insufficiency of the evidence to sustain the conviction. To sustain the conviction, the evidence must demonstrate both a larceny and defendant's connection therewith. The only substantial and competent evidence that tends to connect defendant with the larceny arises from the police officer's relation of his confession that the cigars, cigarettes, and tobacco, found by defendant's direction in the grip in his home, were his share of the night's adventure. The larceny or corpus delicti, however, was shown by evidence aliunde the confession. Where the corpus...
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