State v. Redding, 49066

• Decision Date: 14 May 1962
• Docket Number: No. 49066,No. 2,49066,2
• Citation: 357 S.W.2d 103
• Parties: STATE of Missouri, Respondent, v. Henry Allen REDDING, Appellant
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

Page 103

357 S.W.2d 103

STATE of Missouri, Respondent, v. Henry Allen REDDING, Appellant.

No. 49066.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 2.

May 14, 1962.

Morton D. Baron, St. Louis, for appellant.

Thomas F. Eagleton, Atty. Gen., Theodore C. Beckett, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., Jefferson City, for respondent.

EAGER, Presiding Judge.

Defendant was found guilty by a jury of first degree robbery by means of a dangerous and deadly weapon; upon a finding by the court of a prior conviction of a felony, he was sentenced to a term of twenty years in the penitentiary. On this appeal we consider the assignments of a detailed motion for new trial, in so far as those assignments are sufficient under Rule 27.20, V.A.M.R. We have so frequently quoted insufficient assignments, with citations in support of our rulings, that we do not propose to encumber this opinion with such quotations or citations. The assignments not specifically referred to herein are denied for insufficiency.

The evidence for the State fairly showed the facts now recited. John Leuther owned and operated a market at the corner of 39th and Shenandoah in the City of St. Louis known as the 'Tom Boy Market.' On Friday evening, December 9, 1960, he and his grocery manager, Agnes Shadley, closed the place at about 8:00 p. m., locked the front door as they departed through it, and proceeded together along the 39th Street side of the building until they reached the west side of a parking lot in the rear. There they separated, Agnes walking on south to her car, while Leuther entered the parking lot and walked east to his car parked near the southeast corner. The lot was well illuminated by a large light. As he approached his car he heard footsteps behind him, so he got in his car rather quickly and shut and locked the door. Immediately a man appeared at the window (later identified as Roy Russell Cook, in dicted with this defendant), pointed a .45 caliber revolver at Leuther and said: 'You are a wise son-of-a-bitch, aren't you? I am going to kill you.' After this initial greeting, and other remarks in similar vein, he instructed Leuther to hand him his pocketbook and get out on the other side; Leuther complied, and as he did so, another man, positively identified at the trial and previously as the defendant Henry Allen Redding, came up carrying a .45 caliber automatic pistol which he kept continuously pointed at Leuther. Cook then went through Leuther's clothes, took everything but his car keys, and then ordered him back to the store. The two men then conducted Leuther back to the store where they required him to open the front door and then lock it behind them; inside, they forced him to unlock the safe; at this point the defendant, with the pistol and at Cook's direction, took Leuther to the back of the store, where they waited. Cook soon appeared with the contents of the safe in four canvas bank bags, and together they took Leuther into the meat cutting room, where the defendant continued to hold his pistol 'on me.' At that point Cook again threatened to kill the victim and cocked and uncocked his revolver several times while held at his 'belly'; defendant, according to Leuther, protested the idea of killing him. Finally they tied Leuther to the door of the cooler and left through the back door of the market. Leuther eventually freed himself, went to a nearby store and had the police called. The evidence showed that $7,820.75 was taken, of which about $620 was in checks and the balance in cash. Two thousand dollars of the money was in new ten-dollar bills, and another $2,000 in used ten-dollar bills, all of which had just been procured from the bank. Approximately $150 was taken from Leuther's billfold. The men also took four books of American Express money order forms from the safe; the market was a substation for the sale of money orders. The men wore no masks, and Leuther testified that he had ample opportunity to look at the defendant.

Defendant was arrested in his apartment or 'flat' at about 8:45 p. m. on December 13, four days after the robbery. At that time the officers found and took a loaded .45 caliber revolver, a loaded .45 automatic pistol, extra ammunition, $400 in ten-dollar bills (of which 21 were new with consecutive serial numbers) and four books of blank American Express money order forms. These things were all marked by the officers at the time and produced at the trial. The details of the arrest will be considered further a little later.

Defendant took the stand and testified that he was in East St. Louis gambling at the time of the robbery; and that he won $500-$600, thus accounting for the money found. He also testified that he had bought the two guns at about 6:00 o'clock on a morning two or three days after the robbery, on the street at Sixth and Market from a man whom he had never seen before; he further testified that the books by money order blanks were later found by him in the paper sack in which the guns were delivered to him. He denied the robbery. He admitted a previous conviction for statutory rape, a sentence of three years and the serving of the term in the Algoa Intermediate Reformatory.

Defendant's counsel filed a motion to suppress evidence of the property found in his apartment. Our discussion of the question so raised will also dispose of the same question raised at the trial and in the claim of error in permitting the officers to testify to what they found in the apartment. At the hearing before trial evidence was introduced showing, in substance: that the officers who made the arrest had been assigned to the investigation of this robbery; they had heard the radio report of the robbery and had read the written police report, both of which included descriptions of the robbers, and they had noted that one description fitted this defendant; they had seen defendant and Cook driving around the neighborhood at various times of the day and night, and had noted they were apparently not working; they had learned that after the time of the robbery defendant had traded his car in on a newer one and paid $400 in cash in new ten-dollar bills; on the evening of the arrest they had seen him carrying a TV set out of a store and loading it in the trunk of his car; an informer had told two of these officers, after the robbery, that Cook and Redding were spending a lot of money, had bought a car, clothes and luggage, had showed a handful of ten-dollar bills, and that there were money orders at defendant's home. On the evening of December 13, 1960, two of these officers who were on duty called the third who was off duty, and told him that with the information they had they thought they should make the arrest, whereupon this officer met the other two; one of the three testified that the calling officer added that they should make the arrest 'before we lose the evidence.' The officers proceeded to the rear door of defendant's apartment and knocked; a man said 'Who's there,' and one of the officers answered--'police officers.' There were brief remarks about defendant's car in the alley, defendant came to the door and opened it, and the officers entered the kitchen; two of the officers were in uniform. One of them immediately told defendant that he was under arrest for the robbery of the Tom Boy Market; he replied, in effect, that they were crazy. The officers searched him for weapons, handcuffed him and then one of the officers told him that they were going to search the house; he replied,--'Go ahead, I have nothing to hide.' In a large, open closet opening off the kitchen, the officers found the four books of money order blanks in the top drawer of a chest of drawers; in the pockets of defendant's overcoat they found the two loaded guns; and in a woman's coat they found the forty ten-dollar bills. In the kitchen cabinet they found additional ammunition for the automatic.

Defendant complains here that the arrest was delayed so that evidence might be seized, and that the search extended beyond the room in which the arrest was made; also, that there were no 'proper grounds' for the arrest. Admittedly, there was no warrant for the arrest or the search. Defendant has pleaded Sec. 15 of Article 1 of the Missouri Constitution, V.A.M.S. and the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution. We rule, first, that the arrest was lawful. The mere recital of the information which these officers had is sufficient to show that they had reasonable cause to suspect that defendant was guilty of a felony,--namely, this specific robbery. See, generally, State v. Cantrell, Mo., 310 S.W.2d 866; State v. Edwards, Mo., 317 S.W.2d 441; State v. Raines, 339 Mo. 884, 98 S.W.2d 580. Having such, they were entitled to arrest him. Edwards, supra; State v. Bailey, 320 Mo. 271, 8 S.W.2d 57; City of St. Louis v. Washington, Mo.App., 223 S.W.2d 858; State v. Humphrey, 358 Mo. 904, 217 S.W.2d 551. The officers also had the right to determine, in the fair exercise of their discretion, the time and place of the arrest. The mere fact that they had seen him on the street with the television set some half hour earlier, and that they could, presumably, have arrested him then, is in no way controlling. Nothing was shown here to indicate such an arbitrary exercise of power as to make the arrest invalid.

As an incident to a lawful arrest, officers have the right to make a search and to take articles which have evidentiary value in connection with the crime for which the suspect is arrested. State v. Turner, 302 Mo. 660, 259 S.W. 427; State v. Raines, 339 Mo. 884, 98 S.W.2d 580; State v. Cantrell, Mo., 310 S.W.2d 866; State v. Edwards, Mo., 317 S.W.2d 441; State v. Wright, 336 Mo. 135, 77 S.W.2d 459. The right to search applies to a car in which a suspect is or has been riding (Edwards, Cantrell, supra), the house in which he is arrested (Wright, supra) or the premises (Turner, supra); one opinion uses the word 'room' (State v. Rebasti, 306 Mo. 336, 267 S.W. 858,...