State v. Thomas
| Decision Date | 14 April 1969 |
| Docket Number | No. 1,No. 53601,53601,1 |
| Citation | 440 S.W.2d 467 |
| Parties | STATE of Missouri, Respondent, v. Sanford THOMAS, Appellant |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
John C. Danforth, Atty. Gen., Jefferson City, Gene E. Voigts, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., North Kansas City, for respondent.
Alfred I. Harris, St. Louis, for appellant.
Defendant appeals from a conviction of first degree murder of a cab driver, with a sentence of life imprisonment.
From the evidence in the case, the jury could reasonably have found the following to be the facts:
On Sunday evening, November 27, 1966, defendant, age 17, had been riding with six or seven other youths around the North Florissant and Cass Avenue neighborhood in St. Louis. The group was in two automobiles. Around 8:00 p.m., they went to the Greyhound bus station. One of the boys testified that he had told a detective in the investigation later that someone in the group had said he didn't have any money, so they started joking about getting some money and Frederick Brown said, 'Let's go stick up somebody', although the witness also testified that this statement to the detective was a lie. At the bus station Brown and defendant got into a taxicab driven by John Dougherty, defendant in the rear seat and Brown in front. The cab then drove off, going south on Broadway. One of the youths who had walked around the bus terminal with Brown and defendant came running back to where the others had parked and said that Brown and Thomas had gotten in a cab and were going to 16th and Mullanphy. The others tried to follow the cab but lost it in the traffic, so they drove to Brown's house. An hour or so later Dougherty was found in the front seat of his cab at 16th and Mullanphy, unconscious. One of his teeth was knocked out and he was bleeding from two stab wounds on the left side of his chest. One would penetrated the heart and proved fatal.
Niles Pursley, one of the youths, said Brown and defendant came to Brown's house on Chambers Street. The others were already there in the kitchen. Brown and defendant entered through the back door. As to what happened then, Pursley testified on direct examination:
On cross-examination the witness testified:
'Q. Brown told you he got the watch and wallet?
'
'
Lonnie Anderson, another of the youths, testified he talked to Frederick Brown the next day. Brown was wearing the wrist watch. He told Anderson that he had robbed and killed the cab driver and laughed about it, said that he had stabbed him and showed Anderson the knife, which was a pocket knife produced by the state as exhibit 1, but said nothing about defendant being with him. Anderson admitted he told the police that when Brown and defendant arrived at the house Sunday evening as they entered Brown said 'We stuck up a cab driver' and laughed and talked about it and that Brown also said, 'Yeah, I stabbed him.'
Some pieces of charred paper which Frederick Brown pointed out to the officers in a garbage can at the house where he was arrested the day following the murder were identified as some of the papers the cab driver carried in the wallet.
The knife was given to the witness, Niles Pursley, the next day at Brown's house by Brown's girl friend. Pursley gave the knife to his father, who in turn gave it to the police. The police serologist said there was human blood on the knife, but not enough to determine the type.
Defendant, who apparently had no previous record, testified. He said that he and Brown got in the cab together and that Brown whispered, 'Let's rob the cab driver', but defendant refused to go along with this and got out of the cab at 14th and Cass. He said he caught another cab and went to 18th and Cass to see if Brown were there at his mother-in-law's house. About this time Brown came walking up the street, so they both got in another cab, which defendant had called, and went to Brown's house on Chambers and Florissant, where they went inside. He denied participating in the crime and denied that he and Brown walked into the kitchen and threw the watch and wallet on the table in front of the others and said 'That's all we got out of the robbery'.
The question before us is whether the evidence is insufficient to make a submissible case. Defendant argues it is a miscarriage of justice for a man to be sentenced to life imprisonment on what he describes as 'trifles of evidence'.
With regard to defendant's participation in the crime, the jury had the following before it:
1. One of the youths told the detective that someone in the group said he didn't have any money, so they started joking about getting some money and that Brown said 'Let's go stick up somebody'. This came in without objection.
2. It was established that Frederick Brown and defendant entered Dougherty's cab at the bus station to go to 16th and Mullanphy.
3. About an hour later the cab driver was discovered at 16th and Mullanphy in the front seat of his cab, dying from stab wounds. No knife was found on him or in his cab.
4. About the same time, Frederick Brown and defendant arrived where their friends were gathered, said they robbed the cab driver, threw a watch and wallet on the table and said that was all they got. Brown said, 'Yeah, I stabbed him.'
5. The watch, wallet and its contents were identified as belonging to the victim, Dougherty.
6. Dougherty died of a stab wound in the heart.
7. Defendant did not produce any of the persons who he said were at the house where he claimed he went looking...
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