State v. Vidauri
| Decision Date | 14 October 1957 |
| Docket Number | No. 1,No. 46020,46020,1 |
| Citation | 305 S.W.2d 437 |
| Parties | STATE of Missouri, Respondent, v. Joseph M. VIDAURI, Appellant |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
No brief filed for appellant.
John M. Dalton, Atty. Gen., Julian L. O'Malley, Asst. Atty. Gen., for respondent.
VAN OSDOL, Commissioner.
Defendant, Joseph M. Vidauri, was convicted of perjury and his punishment assessed by the jury at seven years in the state penitentiary. Sections 557.010 and 557.020 RSMo 1949, V.A.M.S. He has appealed from the ensuing judgment, but has filed no brief herein. We shall look to his motion for a new trial for assignments of contended errors.
The instant case ultimately arose out of the riot at the Missouri State Penitentiary, September 22, 1954, in which one Walter Lee Donnell was murdered. Defendant and six others were indicted for the homicide, and defendant upon severance and trial in September, 1955, was found guilty of murder in the first degree and sentenced to imprisonment for life. Upon appeal to this court, the judgment of conviction of murder in the first degree was affirmed. State v. Vidauri, Mo.Sup., 293 S.W.2d 955.
While the homicide case was pending in the Circuit Court of Cole County, defendant filed his 'Motion for Production of Statements for Inspecting, Examining, Copying and/or Photographing' by which he sought the production of a typewritten statement in which defendant purportedly admitted participation in the murder of Donnell, which statement, according to the motion, was 'alleged by the said Prosecuting Attorney to have been made and signed by' defendant. The motion stated that defendant had stated to his attorney that he, movant, had never signed such statement. The motion was heard in the Circuit Court of Cole County, January 12, 1955.
The information in the instant case averred that defendant committed perjury in the hearing on said motion by stating under oath that he did not sign any statement admitting any part in the homicide.
In the trial of the instant case, the Honorable Sam C. Blair, testified that he, as presiding officer of the Circuit Court of Cole County, heard the evidence introduced in support of defendant's motion to produce; that defendant was duly sworn as a witness; and that defendant was asked if he had signed any statement, to which question the defendant gave the answer 'no.' The official court reporter of the Circuit Court of Cole County read from his notes taken at the hearing on the motion. Such reading tended to show that defendant was asked if he had signed any statement admitting any part in the homicide, and that defendant had answered 'no' to such question when asked of him by his counsel, and had also made the same answer when questioned by the Circuit Judge. The State introduced evidence tending to show that defendant had in fact signed such statement. This evidence consisted principally of the testimony of officers who testified they saw defendant sign. Defendant, who testified in the trial of the homicide case as well as in the trial of the instant case, admitted the fact he had signed his name to the statement, but the testified that 'I had forged my name with my left hand.' On cross-examination defendant stated that, in testifying upon the hearing on the motion to produce, he was following his attorney's instructions to give 'yes' or 'no' answers and had not, at the time, defined his conception of a signature or of a forgery. Defendant also proffered evidence tending to show that when he signed the statement he was in a weakened condition, having been kicked and beaten by the questioning officers; that he signed with his left hand to free himself of physical torture being inflicted upon him; and that when he had testified 'no' in support of the motion to produce he meant the signature was 'not my signature, legally.' The trial court refused defendant's proffer of this evidence and, herein, defendant-appellant contends the trial court's exclusion of such evidence was error, and that instructions in effect submitting as a defense the facts which the proffered evidence would have tended to support were erroneously refused. These contentions are ruled adversely to defendant-appellant.
The evidence offered by defendant that he was physically punished and abused when the statement was signed no doubt was proper on the issue of 'voluntariness' of the statement as a confession upon defendant's trial in the homicide case; but, in the instant trial of defendant on the charge of perjury, the issue was the falsity of defendant's testimony in support of the motion to produce that he had not signed the statement. On this issue, the evidence introduced by the State was substantial in tending to prove...
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State v. Rollie
...trial and statements made by each at a prior time. Such inconsistent statements do not amount to perjury. In the case of State v. Vidauri, 305 S.W.2d 437, 440 (Mo.1957), the court declared, ". . . the very essence of the crime of perjury is wilful false swearing to a substantially definite ......
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State v. Stidham
...167); State v. Noble, Mo., 387 S.W.2d 522; State v. Kenton, Mo., 298 S.W.2d 433; State v. Vidauri, Mo., 293 S.W.2d 955 and State v. Vidauri, Mo., 305 S.W.2d 437. ...
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Humfeld v. Langkop
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State v. King
... ... The rule is well settled that the granting of a continuance in a criminal case is primarily a matter within the discretion ... of the trial court. Its action is not to be interfered with in the absence of abuse of discretion. State v. Vidauri, Mo.Sup., 305 S.W.2d 437, 440(4, 5); State v. Scott, Mo.Sup., 338 S.W.2d 873, 876(4-6). Here there was no showing offered in support of the request for a continuance. The trial court was not bound to accept the allegations of the motion. State v. Richardson, Mo.Sup., 343 S.W.2d 51, 54(5); State ... ...