State v. Simon
| Decision Date | 03 March 1933 |
| Docket Number | No. 32700.,32700. |
| Citation | 57 S.W.2d 1062 |
| Parties | STATE v. SIMON. |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Appeal from St. Louis Circuit Court, Claude O. Pearcy, Judge.
Joseph Simon was convicted of carrying concealed deadly weapon, and he appeals.
Reversed and remanded for a new trial.
William Baer, of St. Louis, for appellant.
Stratton Shartel, Atty. Gen., and Maurice W. Covert, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
FITZSIMMONS, Commissioner.
Appellant was charged by indictment in the circuit court of the city of St. Louis with carrying concealed about his person a deadly and dangerous weapon, namely, a loaded automatic pistol. Upon trial he was found guilty and his punishment was fixed at one year's imprisonment in the city workhouse. From the ensuing sentence and judgment he appealed.
The principal point for decision is the sufficiency of the evidence. Appellant offered no evidence, and the state's case rests upon the testimony of two police officers. Joseph E. Cicotte, a policeman attached to the secret service bureau of the St. Louis police department, and Detective Richard Foegee, of the same service branch, saw appellant and one Anthony Bettros riding in a Studebaker coupé on Compton avenue in St. Louis. Appellant was driving and was on the left side of the one seat in the car. Bettros was on the right side of the seat. The officers, who were in an automobile on scouting duty, pursued, overtook, and arrested appellant and Bettros. The arrested men were made to leave their car and were searched by the officers for weapons. But no weapon was found upon them. Officer Cicotte then searched the car in which the two men had been riding. He looked back of the seat and upon a shelf in the rear of the seat and under the floor mat, but he found nothing. Detective Foegee then placed Bettros in the police car and drove to the police station. Policeman Cicotte forced appellant to re-enter the Studebaker car and to drive with the officer to the same station. On the way to the station, appellant inquired of Cicotte whether he wished to make a hundred dollars. The officer answered that he could not release him for a thousand dollars. Appellant replied that he did not wish to be turned loose, and, when the officer inquired how was he going to make a hundred dollars, appellant said: "My partner placed a gun in that pocket; give it a pitch or keep it and I will give you a hundred dollars." Cicotte reached into the pocket of the car but did not find a weapon there. This pocket was in front under the dashboard of the car. "There is no gun in here," said the officer. Appellant answered: "Well, my partner probably gave it a pitch." Cicotte testified that this closed the conversation about the pistol.
When the officers reached the police station, they took their prisoners within, booked them, and locked them in cells. About five minutes' time was given to these formalities. The officers then returned to the Studebaker car, drove it from the street in front of the station house into a passageway on the police premises beside the station, and made another search. They then found a 45 Colts' automatic pistol, fully loaded, and also a loaded clip in a space in the car between the right side of the car and the cushion of the seat. The seat of the car was deeper than the width of the door. The space in which the pistol was found was back of the door frame and next to the right-hand side of the seat. It was beside the place where Bettros had been sitting and about four and a half feet from where appellant had been sitting. The weapon was fully concealed while it was in this space.
1. We are of opinion that the evidence was insufficient and the demurrer should have been sustained. The pistol was found concealed in the automobile, while appellant was a prisoner in the police station and about five minutes after appellant had been removed from the car to a cell. The pistol was not concealed about the person of appellant at the time of its discovery....
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State v. Taylor
...the State's case and again at the close of all the evidence. State v. Duncan, 50 S.W. 2d 1021; State v. Murphy, 201 S.W. 2d 280; State v. Simon, 57 S.W. 2d 1062; State Knight, 296 S.W. 367. (3) The court committed error in not administering to the sheriff the oath prescribed in Section 701,......
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...founded on an inference which is based on another inference, neither inference being proven by direct evidence.' He stresses State v. Simon, Mo., 57 S.W.2d 1062[2, 3], and cites State v. Ross, Mo., 300 S.W. 717[2, 3]; State v. Taylor, 356 Mo. 1216, 205 S.W.2d 734, 736[1-5]; and State v. Kni......
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State v. Hall
...offense vicariously because his companion was found with such a weapon. This statute does not contemplate such a charge. In State v. Simon, 57 S.W.2d 1062 (Mo.1933), the court said (a declaration which we adopt as applicable here), at l.c. 'But mere knowledge on the part of appellant that B......
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