State v. Morice

• Decision Date: 05 March 1935
• Docket Number: 33707
• Citation: 79 S.W.2d 741
• Parties: STATE v. MORICE
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

79 S.W.2d 741

STATE v. MORICE

No. 33707

Supreme Court of Missouri, Second Division

March 5, 1935

J. R Weinbrenner, of St. Louis, for appellant.

Roy McKittrick, Atty. Gen., and Frank W. Hayes, Asst. Atty. Gen for the State.

TIPTON P. J., and ELLISON, J., concur.

OPINION

LEEDY Judge.

Appeal from the circuit court of the city of St. Louis wherein appellant was convicted of the charge of carrying a concealed weapon. His punishment was fixed by the verdict of the jury at a fine of $ 100 and a term of fifty days in jail. From the judgment and sentence in conformity therewith, he has appealed.

The facts are brief, and are not disputed. They were fairly stated by the assistant circuit attorney in his opening statement to the jury, which appellant has preserved and adopted as his statement in this court, and which we likewise adopt, as follows: 'On the day in question, in the evening, around about 8:30, two colored officers, Officer Hope and Officer Stanford, of the Secret Service Bureau, went into a place at 717 rear Cardinal avenue, a place of business conducted by a colored man by the name of Owens; they went in a side door; it consists of two rooms; they had to go through one room to get to the rear part of the place, and when they went in there they saw a group of men around a table standing around a table; the exact size of this table I don't know, but a pretty good size, with a cloth of some kind on it; some eight or ten or twelve men -- colored men -- including two white young men, one of whom was the defendant, and a young fellow by the name of Earl Davenport; the officers walked in there and told them to 'Stand back,' they were going to be searched and they all stood back of this table, and Officer Hope and Officer Stanford proceeded to search all of the persons there in that room, and during the course of that search they found a pistol on the defendant, down in the waistband of his trousers, fully concealed from view, loaded with five bullets; they questioned him as to what he was doing with that pistol and he stated that he had been out hunting. They then placed him under arrest and took him to the police station and this prosecution started.' (Italics ours.) On the merits of the case only two witnesses testified -- Stanford, the police officer on the part of the state, and defendant in his own behalf. On the hearing on defendant's motion to suppress, the transcript of the testimony taken on his preliminary examination in the court of criminal correction was, by agreement...