State v. Johnson
| Decision Date | 08 January 1973 |
| Docket Number | No. 1,No. 56502,56502,1 |
| Citation | 488 S.W.2d 645 |
| Parties | STATE of Missouri, Respondent, v. Edward JOHNSON, Appellant |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
John C. Danforth, Atty. Gen., Jefferson City, Charles B. Blackmar, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., St. Louis, for respondent.
Karl F. Lang, St. Louis, for appellant.
This is an appeal from a first degree murder conviction with a life sentence. We have jurisdiction because the appeal was pending here January 1, 1972 and prior to the decision in Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 92 S.Ct. 2726, 33 L.Ed.2d 346.
Three persons were fatally stabbed in a robbery in an apartment in St. Louis the night of October 31-November 1, 1969. Two of them, Mrs. Hermine Rohs, and Willy Rohs, her adult son, were dead on arrival of the police. The third, Rohs' wife, Mrs. Marilyn Rohs, died November 10 from her wounds. Defendant was tried for the murder of Marilyn Rohs.
The St. Louis police, on November 3, 1969, around 6:00 p.m., arrested defendant as a suspect. The police had no warrant. It does not appear from the record what reasonable grounds, if any, the police had for suspecting defendant. The police were in defendant's house with him for 30 minutes or so immediately following the arrest. There is a dispute as to whether they had his permission to enter and to what extent they conducted a search of his house and his truck parked in front of the house. Defendant was then taken to the police station and interrogated about the Rohs case. Around 9:00 p.m. he was taken to the victim's room at Barnes Hospital for a one-man showup. Shortly after leaving the victim's room, defendant made the first of several incriminating statements about participating in the robbery. He also told the officers they could find the man he said did the actual killing by a clue to the man's identity in the wallet which defendant had left at home. The police, by means of the clue in the vallet (a driver's license) promptly located and arrested the man, Willie James, and found in James' possession a ring and watch which were identified as belonging to the deceased Willy Rohs.
Defendant does not argue there is not sufficient evidence to support the conviction, if the evidence is admissible, although he denies any guilt and asserted an alibi. His position is that the oral incriminating statements and the ring and watch used against him on which the conviction rests were the fruit of his illegal arrest and an illegal showup conducted in the victim's hospital room, and hence the court erred in overruling his motions to suppress and in admitting the evidence.
We first examine the motions to suppress, the evidence at the suppression hearing, and the findings and conclusions of the trial court. The motion to suppress evidence was directed at evidence seized by the police from defendant's house and automobile (this part becomes academic as the state made no effort to offer any such evidence and it does not appear the clothing and shoes which they took from the house in any way led to defendant making the incriminating statements in question) and the ring and watch seized at Willie James' house. The motion to suppress statements was directed at all the oral sttements made to the police by defendant. Defendant's grounds were violation of his privilege against self-incrimination and right to counsel and that the evidence and oral statements were all fruit of the original unlawful arrest.
Defendant's testimony was that he was arrested by six or seven policemen as he was approaching the front door of his house after work. He was taken inside and seated in the living room while the officers went through the house and searched his truck. Then he was taken to the police station. He denied telling the police that the name of the person who committed the crime with him was in a wallet at his house, or that he had left a wallet there; denied that he gave the officers permission to search the house at the time of his arrest or to return to the house and get the wallet. Defendant produced one Edward C. Vancil, a former attorney in the public defender's office in St. Louis. Vancil testified that James Roche, an assistant circuit attorney, had called him to come to Barnes Hospital, that the police had a suspect named Edward Johnson and wanted to show him to a witness there. When Vancil reached the hospital he learned the suspect had already been shown to the victim. Vancil then went to the police station, arriving there around 9:45 p.m. and remaining there for the next three or four hours.
Without reciting the details, there was evidence from the state that defendant was advised as to his constitutional rights immediately following his arrest; 1 that he said he understood; that he was again so advised upon arrival at the police station; that defendant made no request for counsel, saying he had done nothing and did not need a lawyer, and did not ask permission to use the telephone; that at the hospital, when, following the showup, he admitted he was present when the murders occurred, he was again advised as to his rights, this time by the circuit attorney; that when he said upon return to the police station that there was a clue to the identity of the person who did the actual killing in his wallet at home, he was informed he would have to give permission for the police to enter the house and that what they found in the wallet would be used against him and the other person; that defendant said it was all right for them to get the wallet; that there were no threats or promises made and no violence at any time.
The trial court found there was no probable cause for the arrest, but that the incriminating statements were voluntary and that the testimony was sufficient to establish the warnings had been given, especially when there was no testimony from defendant that the warnings had not been given or that any pressure was applied to him; that as to the police entering the house and obtaining the wallet, the evidence showed defendant had consented. The court overruled the motions to suppress.
During the ensuing trial on the merits, much of the evidence presented in the pre-trial suppression hearing was repeated before the jury and defendant's counsel kept alive his objections to the evidence in question, and again it was a matter of factual dispute between the police and defendant. The testimony of the police officers was about the same as on the motion to suppress. In addition, the state called the first assistant circuit attorney, James Roche. Mr. Roche testified he advised defendant at the police station as to his constitutional rights, told him they wanted Mrs. Rohs at the hospital to look at him and he had gotten in touch with the public defender and was sending a police car for him. Mr. Roche testified further '. . . he (defendant) said, what's this about, and I said, we have a girl out there we want to look at your (sic), and he said, if all she's going to do is look at me, then, let's get it over with, I don't need a lawyer, and he walked out.'
Defendant testified in his own behalf. He again denied giving the officers permission to search and denied being involved in the crime or making any of the incriminating statements attributed to him. He offered an alibi, uncorroborated. He also denied being warned as to his rights by anyone and said he repeatedly asked for a lawyer but got no response. In...
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State v. Johnson, 57471
...her wounds. Defendant has previously been convicted of the murder of Marilyn Rohs, which conviction was affirmed on appeal. State v. Johnson, 488 S.W.2d 645 (Mo.1973). In the companion case of State v. Smith, 491 S.W.2d 257 (Mo.1973), Willie Smith's conviction for the murders of Marilyn and......
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State v. Flowers
...initiated the final questioning session in California which led to statements placing her at the scene of the crime. State v. Johnson, 488 S.W.2d 645, 649 (Mo.1973) distinguishes confessions which are "the product of the exploitation of the illegal arrest" and a "defendant's own decision to......
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State v. Richardson
...is whether, even if we should assume an 'illegal arrest, the statements actually are made voluntarily without coercion.' State v. Johnson, 488 S.W.2d 645, 649 (Mo.1973). On the record in this case, we hold that the video tape confession was made voluntarily without coercion. Appellant was a......
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State v. Schade, 40994
...prosecuting attorney to prove statements in a deposition is not to be encouraged, we find no error in this case. State v. Johnson, 488 S.W.2d 645, 647 (Mo.1973); State v. Hayes, 473 S.W.2d 688, 691-92 (Mo.1971); State v. Dennison, 571 S.W.2d 140, 141 The judgment is affirmed. REINHARD, P. J......