State v. Jasper
| Decision Date | 13 November 1972 |
| Docket Number | No. 54996,54996 |
| Citation | 486 S.W.2d 268 |
| Parties | STATE of Missouri, Respondent, v. Connie JASPER, Appellant. |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
John C. Danforth, Atty. Gen., Gene E. Voigts, First Ass't. Atty. Gen., Jefferson City, for respondent.
J. Arnot Hill, Robert G. Duncan, Pierce, Duncan, Hill & Russell, Kansas City, for appellant.
Defendant and three other men were indicted for murder in the first degree. Defendant Jasper, separately tried, was convicted of murder in the second degree and sentenced to imprisonment for 40 years. An opinion affirming the conviction was written in Division I of this Court, but a rehearing was granted and the case subsequently was transferred to the Court en Banc where it was reargued. We have jurisdiction because this case was pending here prior to January 1, 1972. Article V, § 31, Constitution of Missouri, V.A.M.S., as amended. We reverse and remand.
A jury could reasonably find from the evidence that on the afternoon of February 15, 1969, four armed men, including defendant, robbed George's Market in Kansas City. As they emerged from the market, with guns in hand, they were observed by (and apparently themselves observed) a police officer in a marked patrol wagon stopped on the street in front of the store. At that, the four men fled, two on foot and two (defendant and one Charles Beal) in an automobile which had been parked nearby. As the automobile, with Beal driving, started to drive away, defendant ran and jumped in the car. The police officer called to them to halt, and also fired two shots at the car, one of which struck and shattered the rear glass. A high-speed chase followed and continued for a few blocks until the car driven by Beal violated a traffic signal at 35th and Van Brunt, colliding with another automobile in the intersection. Ward Wooderson, owner of the other car, and two occupants therein were killed.
The indictment against defendant charged first degree murder in common form, alleging that defendant and others unlawfully, wilfully, deloniously, premeditatedly, deliberately, and with malice aforethought made an assault on Ward Wooderson with an automobile by driving the same with great force and violence against the automobile occupied by Ward Wooderson. At the conclusion of the trial, the court gave the jury a conventional first degree murder instruction, a felony-murder instruction under § 559.010, V.A.M.S. (submitting whether the homicide occurred while defendant was participating in the commission of a robbery), and a conventional second degree murder instruction. The jury verdict acquitted defendant of murder in the first degree but convicted him of murder in the second degree.
Defendant, on this appeal, does not seriously question that the evidence would have been sufficient to sustain a verdict of murder in the first degree under the felony-murder rule established by § 559.010. Defendant's companion was convicted of first degree murder under said rule and that conviction has been affirmed by this Court. State v. Beal, Mo., 470 S.W.2d 509. Defendant does contend, however, that there was no evidence to sustain a conviction of murder in the second degree, and that under the evidence the only possible verdicts were either guilty of murder in the first degree or not guilty. Consequently, says defendant, it was error to instruct the jury on murder in the second degree.
At common law a person committing a homicide in the perpetration of a felony was guilty of murder. 1 Wharton on Homicide, 3rd Ed., p. 174. In Missouri, the legislature has provided that if a homicide occurs on connection with certain felonies enumerated in § 559.010, it is murder in the first degree, whether or not the death was intended. 'The commission of, or the attempt to commit, the felony is the legal equivalent of premeditation, deliberation, and malice.' State v. Hayes, Mo., 262 S.W. 1034, 1037. In State v. Robinett, Mo., 279 S.W. 696, 700, this Court, after recognizing the effect of the predecessor statute of § 559.010, went on to say: '* * * if the intention is to commit some felony other than one of those enumerated in that section, such homicide, although unintentional, is murder in the second degree under section 3231 * * *.' 2
In State v. Lindsey, 333 Mo. 139, 62 S.W.2d 420, 425, the Court, after reviewing and quoting the above language from the Robinett case, went on to say: 'From the foregoing we see that the necessary elements of murder in the first or second degree are imported or transferred into the homicide case from the felony perpetrated only when those elements are not independently present in the record of the homicide. But it those elements are independently pendently present, then, when the other felony committed is other than arson, rape, robbery, burglary, or mayhem, the...
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State v. Morgan
...in the second degree. RSMo 1969 (Supp.1975). Appellant was charged under the latter statute, under the theory resurrected in State v. Jasper, 486 S.W.2d 268, 271 (Mo.banc It is thus clear that Missouri recognizes the common law felony-murder rule under which a homicide committed in connecti......
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State v. Milentz
...under § 559.020, RSMo 1969, pursuant to the felony-murder rule. State v. Mudgett, 531 S.W.2d 275, 278-279 (Mo. banc 1975); State v. Jasper, 486 S.W.2d 268, 271 (Mo. banc 1972); State v. Lindsey, 333 Mo. 139, 62 S.W.2d 420, 425 (1933); State v. Robinett, 279 S.W. 696, 700 (Mo.1926). In the i......
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State v. Williams
...v. Allison, 330 Mo. 773, 51 S.W.2d 51(8) (1932). In support of his contention defendant relies primarily on the case of State v. Jasper, 486 S.W.2d 268 (Mo.1972) a case which the court of appeals concluded could be understood to hold that conventional murder second is not a lesser included ......
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State v. Ford, 57682
...State v. Owens, supra, 486 S.W.2d at 466; State v. Bradley, 361 Mo. 267, 234 S.W.2d 556, 563 (1950). Defendant's reliance upon State v. Jasper, 486 S.W.2d 268 (Mo. banc 1972) and State v. Ayers, 470 S.W.2d 534 (Mo. banc 1971), is misplaced. In Jasper the court held that where a homicide is ......