State v. Williams
| Decision Date | 12 October 1964 |
| Docket Number | No. 2,No. 50453,50453,2 |
| Citation | 382 S.W.2d 597 |
| Parties | STATE of Missouri, Respondent, v. Horace Edward WILLIAMS, Appellant |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Thomas F. Eagleton, Atty. Gen., Jefferson City, Burton H. Shostak, Special Asst. Atty. Gen., St. Louis, for respondent.
Donald Gunn, Jr., St. Louis, for appellant.
A jury found the defendant guilty of the offense of burglary in the second degree. Section 560.070, RSMo 1959, V.A.M.S. The trial court heard evidence in chambers and made a finding that the defendant had been convicted of prior felonies. The punishment was, therefore, assessed by the court and the defendant was sentenced to five years in the custody of the Department of Corrections. Section 556.280, RSMo 1959, V.A.M.S. The principal contentions on appeal are that the trial court erred in failing to sustain the defendant's motion to dismiss at the close of the evidence, in finding that he had been convicted of prior felonies, in the admission of certain evidence, and in the giving and refusal of instructions to the jury.
On January 5, 1963, at approximately 9:40 p. m., police officers were dispatched to the premises of S. M. Arnold, Incorporated, a dealer in sponges, located at 1701 Papin Street in the City of St. Louis, which is on the northwest corner of the intersection of 17th and Papin. A one-story addition had been built onto the rear of the original two-story building. When the officers arrived, two men jumped from the roof of the one-story addition and ran. They outdistanced the two officers who pursued them on foot, but the defendant was arrested almost immediately thereafter by another officer in a patrol car as the defendant was trying to crawl under a gate in a wire fence enclosing a lot of the Union Electric Company on the southwest corner of 18th and Gratiot Street. Eighteenth Street is one block west of 17th, and Gratiot Street is one block north of Papin.
Investigation of the sponge company's premises disclosed that a hole 30 inches wide and about 22 inches high had been made in a 9-inch brick wall at the rear of the original building at the roof level of the addition. Through this hole a person could go to all parties of the building including the one-story addition. A flashlight and a crowbar were found in front of a company safe on the first floor of the premises. An employee who was the last to leave on the day in question testified that the premises of the sponge company were locked and secure when he left, that there was no hole in the brick wall and the crowbar and flashlight were not in front of the safe. This coupled with the fact that two men were seen jumping and running from the building constituted substantial evidence that someone broke and entered the building in which there was at the time goods, wares, merchandise, and other valuable things with the intent to steal, which is the offense of burglary in the second degree under Sec. 560.070.
The defendant contends that the evidence was insufficient to prove that the defendant was the person who burglarized the property and therefore his motion for a verdict of acquittal should have been sustained. He relies upon State v. Scott, 177 Mo. 665, 76 S.W. 950, and State v. Tracy, 284 Mo. 619, 225 S.W. 1009, in which it was held that suspicion of guilt, no matter how strong, was not sufficient to support a conviction. But there in more than mere suspicion in this case.
Detectives Menniges and Drazen were the first to arrive at 17th and Papin and were about 50 to 75 feet from the two Negro men who jumped from the building and fled, one of whom was described by the detectives as a man about 5 feet, 10 inches tall, weight about 160 pounds, wearing a dark green jacket, light pants, and a dark hat. This man ran west on Papin and then northwesterly across a vacant lot with the detectives in pursuit. When Detective Menniges saw a marked patrol car in the vicinity of where the man was running, he gave up that pursuit and went after the other man who had gone toward the railroad tracks but was unable to apprehend him. Detective Grazen continued his pursuit of the man in the green jacket and saw the fleeing man crossing 18th toward Gratiot. Detective Drazen then called to the officer in the marked patrol car and returned to the sponge company. The police officer, William Price, took up the pursuit in his patrol car and later brought to the sponge company a Negro man, about 5 feet 10, wearing a dark green jacket, khaki trousers and a dark hat. The officers identified the man in the green jacket as the defendant. The place where he was captured was about a block to a block and a half from the sponge company. There was evidence that the lighting from spotlights on parking lots as well as streetlights rendered visibility in the area good. No person, other than the man captured, was observed running west on Papin and northwest toward the Union Electric lot.
Officer Price testified that when he arrived at the scene of the burglary in his patrol car, he saw the detectives pursuing a man of the description given. Officer Price drove his car west and saw the man running across 18th Street. He took over the pursuit in his patrol car when Detective Drazen called to him, and caught the man as he was trying to get under the gate. He took the man into custody and eventually returned him in a police cruiser to the vicinity of the sponge company where he was viewed by the two detectives. Officer Price further testified that the man he arrested was wearing the same kind of clothing as the man he saw running across 18th Street. The man arrested was adequately identified as the defendant. There were smears or smudges of brick dust on the green jacket which he was wearing when he was arrested. Microscopic examination made of these dust particles in the police laboratory disclosed that they were similar in appearance to samples taken from the wall of the building that had been breached.
It is apparent from the record that the police officers had the fleeing man in sight all or practically all of the time after he jumped from the roof of the burglarized premises until he was arrested shortly thereafter within a block and a half of the scene of the crime. This and the fact that he had smears of brick dust on his clothing similar to that taken from the wall of the building burglarized was substantial evidence connecting the defendant with the commission of the crime and sufficient to support the judgment of conviction. State v. Zammar, Mo., 305 S.W.2d 441, 447; State v. Giden, Mo., 369 S.W.2d 212, 214; State v. Davis, Mo., 367 S.W.2d 517, 519[2, 3]; State v. Burton, Mo., 357 S.W.2d 927, 930. The court did not err in denying the motion for a judgment of acquittal.
John Klosterman, a chemist employed by the St. Louis Police Department, attended Wisconsin State College and Michigan State University majoring in chemistry and police science. He graduated from Michigan State...
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...S.W.2d 365 (Mo.1970). Flight and resistance of arrest may be considered by the jury as evidencing consciousness of guilt. State v. Williams, 382 S.W.2d 597 (Mo.1964), State v. Kilgore, 447 S.W.2d 544 With the above as a legal matrix, evidence most favorable to the state to sustain defendant......
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...is apparent that the instructions each covered the matter of identification, and there is no error in refusing Instruction No. 9-A. State v. Williams, Mo., 382 S.W.2d 597, 600(7); State v. Mobley, Mo., 369 S.W.2d 576, 582(8). Point XV is The judgment is affirmed. BARRETT and STOCKARD, CC., ......