State v. Price
| Decision Date | 14 November 1962 |
| Docket Number | No. 49355,No. 1,49355,1 |
| Citation | 362 S.W.2d 608 |
| Parties | STATE of Missouri, Respondent, v. Arthur Leslie PRICE, Appellant |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Samuel Raban, St. Louis, for appellant.
Thomas F. Eagleton, Atty. Gem., Dale Reesman, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen, Jefferson City, for respondent.
COIL, Commissioner.
A jury convicted Arthur Price of second degree burglary and stealing and the trial court, having found that Price had theretofore been convicted of prior felonies as charged under the habitual criminal act, sentenced him to a term of ten years for burglary and to a term of five years on the stealing conviction, the terms to run consecutively. See Sections 560.045, 560.095, 560.110, 560.156, RSMo 1959, and V.A.M.S. Defendant appealed from the judgment which followed. Inasmuch as he has filed no brief, we shall examine the assignments of error in his motion for new trial.
Defendant offered no evidence. His assignments 2 and 9 challenge the submissibility of the state's case. The evidence, from a standpoint favorable to the state, tended to show that shortly before noon on February 28, 1961, Mrs. Madden was walking toward her home on Devonshire Avenue in St. Louis when she noticed a man cross the street and walk to a blue Ford automobile parked across from her house. He entered the car and sat in the rear seat. Another man occupied the driver's seat and he sounded the horn. She then saw that the front door of her home was standing open. She screamed and, as a result, Mr. Links went to her assistance, looked in the front door and saw a man, who was later identified as the defendant, go out the back door. Links gave chase, caught the fleeing man and detained him, but let him go after threats were made. Links identified the man as the defendant both in a police line-up and at the trial. A neighbor of the Maddens who saw the man leaving the Madden's yard identified him as the defendant both prior to and at the trial. Mrs. Madden had locked both the front and back doors before she had left the house that morning and the inference was justified that no authorized person had entered the dwelling during her absence. About $300 in cash, some jewelry, and a 32-caliber pistol worth about $35 were missing from the Madden home. The pistol was recovered and identified by Mr. Madden at the trial. The blue Ford heretofore mentioned was owned by the defendant.
The foregoing brief summary of the state's evidence demonstrates that the question of whether defendant was guilty of second degree burglary and stealing was for the jury. Section 560.045, supra, provides that one who is convicted of breaking into a dwelling house with intent to steal under circumstances such as not to constitute burglary in the first degree is guilty of burglary in the second degree. The testimony showed that defendant ran from inside the Madden dwelling, at the time the front door, which had theretofore been locked, was open. There was evidence that money and other articles of value were missing from the Madden dwelling justifying the inference that defendant had taken or had a part in stealing those missing items. The evidence concerning the two men in the automobile and their actions was sufficient to justify an inference that they may have been engaged with defendant in the joint commission of the crimes charged. The degree, however great, to which one or both of those men participated did not relieve the defendant of guilt for both burglary and stealing, because, if jointly acting, the act of each was the act of all. That defendant entered the dwelling with the intent to steal is shown by proof justifying a finding he did in fact steal. It is true that there was no direct evidence as to how the front door had been opened but, in view of Mrs. Madden's testimony that she had locked both doors and had given no one permission to enter, and that no authorized person had entered the dwelling during the time Mrs. Madden was away, and in view of the further fact that the front door was open at the time defendant was in the dwelling, there was sufficient circumstantial evidence to sustain the charge of burglary in the second degree. See State v. Young, 345 Mo. 407, 133 S.W.2d 404, 407.
Defendant's new trial assignment 1 charges that the trial court erred in admitting in evidence the gun which was missing from the Madden dwelling. A police officer testified that he went to a third floor apartment occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Clarence McGowan; that Mrs. McGowan and a young girl were present; that Mrs. McGowan obtained the gun in question from a drawer of a chest which was in the vestibule of the apartment. The officer placed identifying marks on the gun. He then proceeded to...
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State v. Connell
...tends to prove that the defendant was the chief actor in the crime. See State v. Lunsford, 331 S.W.2d 538 (Mo.1960); State v. Price, 362 S.W.2d 608 (Mo.1962), cert. denied 374 U.S. 811, 83 S.Ct. 1702, 10 L.Ed.2d 1034 Next, we take up defendant's claims that the court erred (1) in giving a '......
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State v. Schleicher, 54439
...instruction on that subject should have been given is without merit. State v. Tierney, Mo.Supp., 371 S.W.2d 321, 324(6); State v. Price, Mo.Sup., 362 S.W.2d 608, 611(4). Judgment PER CURIAM. The foregoing opinion by WELBORN, C., is adopted as the opinion of the Court. HENLEY, C.J., FINCH, D......
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