State v. Jefferson

• Citation: 64 S.W.2d 929,334 Mo. 57
• Parties: The State v. March Jefferson and Sam Gordon, alias Willie Taylor, Appellants
• Decision Date: 28 October 1933
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

64 S.W.2d 929

334 Mo. 57

The State v. March Jefferson and Sam Gordon, alias Willie Taylor, Appellants

Supreme Court of Missouri

October 28, 1933

Appeal from Jackson Circuit Court; Hon. Darius A. Brown Judge.

Affirmed.

Roy McKittrick, Attorney-General, and James L. HornBostel Assistant Attorney-General, for respondent.

Cooley C. Westhues and Fitzsimmons, CC., concur.

OPINION

COOLEY

Appellants herein and Henry Gordon, alias Willie Gordon, alias James King, all negroes, were convicted in the Circuit Court of Jackson County of murder in the first degree for the killing of Morris Kross. They were charged and tried jointly. The jury assessed the punishment of March Jefferson and Sam Gordon at death and of Henry Gordon at life imprisonment in the penitentiary. All were duly sentenced in accordance with the verdicts and the two first named have appealed. Henry Gordon did not appeal. Appellants have filed no brief in this court. The facts shown by the State's evidence are in substance as follows:

Morris Kross owned and conducted a small grocery and meat store at the corner of Seventeenth Street and Troost Avenue in Kansas City, Missouri. Between eleven and twelve o'clock in the forenoon of June 26, 1931, the three defendants, these appellants and Henry Gordon, went to the store for the purpose of robbing it. Sam Slotnick, a witness for the State was in the store with Kross when they entered. Jefferson was armed with a revolver and Sam Gordon had a piece of iron gas pipe about eighteen inches long, L-shaped at one end. When defendants entered the store Jefferson had his revolver concealed and Sam Gordon carried the gas pipe partially concealed under his coat, one end, which was wrapped with paper, being seen by some of the witnesses as defendants entered. Jefferson ordered some pork chops and while Kross was preparing them for delivery drew and presented his revolver. While he held Kross covered Sam Gordon struck Slotnick on the head with the gas pipe, fracturing his skull and rendering him unconscious, and took from his person his pocketbook containing a small sum of money and some papers. Meanwhile, Henry Gordon rifled the cash register. It appears that Kross was giving indications of not submitting tamely to the holdup and Jefferson called to Sam Gordon to come and hit him with the gas pipe before he, Jefferson, had to shoot him. Gordon thereupon struck Kross two or more blows with the gas pipe, the first blow severely bruising Kross' hand which he had thrown up to protect his head, and the other or others fracturing his skull. Kross died as a result of his wounds several days later. Slotnick remained unconscious for a considerable time and was in the hospital about eight days but eventually recovered and testified at the trial. He identified the defendants. By other witnesses all three defendants were seen and recognized as they entered the store and also when they hurriedly emerged shortly thereafter. They were arrested that night and after some questioning all admitted their guilt. The next day all signed written confessions. The details of what occurred in the store after Slotnick was struck and rendered unconscious were furnished by the written confessions and verbal statements which the State's evidence proved defendants had made.

The bloodstained gas pipe was left in the store where it was discovered immediately after the homicide. It was identified and shown to have been at the house where defendants had spent the night of June 25 and from which, on June 26, they had gone to the store. Slotnick's pocketbook, minus the money but still containing the papers, was found where evidence offered by the State indicated the defendants had secreted it after leaving the store. The cash register in Kross' store was looted, all the money it contained being taken. The written confessions of the three defendants were introduced in evidence. The defendants objected to their introduction on the ground that they had been extorted by brutal treatment and threats of certain police officers, which contentions defendants' testimony before the court in the absence of the jury tended to sustain. The State offered testimony in denial of that of defendants on this point and tending to show that the confessions were voluntary. Defendants saved no exceptions to the court's ruling admitting the confessions. The evidence pro and con on the question of whether the confessions had been made voluntarily was later given to the jury and the court gave instructions on that subject in submitting the case to the jury.

Defendant Henry Gordon testified, admitting that he went with the other defendants into the store but claiming that he bought some sugar and left the store, leaving appellants there, and that while he was in the store no assault nor anything unusual occurred. His testimony that he left the store alone and before appellants was contrary to all the other evidence on that point. Jefferson also testified. His testimony as well as that of Henry Gordon was to the effect that the trio, with some companions, spent the greater part of the night of June 25 in drinking and carousing and by morning were considerably intoxicated but sobered up sufficiently by the middle of the forenoon to be in possession of their faculties. . . . Jefferson further testified, however, that he and one Ed Jolly, at whose house they had spent the night, again went to drinking; that during the...