State v. Williams

• Decision Date: 15 February 1916
• Docket Number: No. 19308.,19308.
• Citation: 183 S.W. 308
• Parties: STATE v. WILLIAMS.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

183 S.W. 308

STATE v. WILLIAMS.

No. 19308.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 2.

February 15, 1916.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Carroll County; Frank P. Divelbiss, Judge.

Charley Williams was convicted of robbery in the first degree, and he appeals. Affirmed.

Guy Whiteman, of Norborne, and Sam Withers, of Carrollton, for appellant. John T. Barker, Atty. Gen., and Lee B. Ewing, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

WALKER, J.

Under an information charging robbery in the first degree, alleged to have been committed in Carroll county, defendant was tried and convicted; his punishment being assessed at imprisonment in the penitentiary for a term of 50 years. From this judgment he appeals.

Jacob Auer, the night operator and agent for the Wabash Railroad Company at Carrollton, at about 4 o'clock on the morning of December 10, 1914, went from the ticket office around into the ladies' waiting room, there being no door connecting the two, to put some coal on the fire. While standing pouring coal into the stove, he was shot through a window by some one on the outside of the waiting room. He fell to the floor unconscious, and so remained for a few minutes. When he regained consciousness, he found that he was partially paralyzed and unable to arise. He heard some one endeavoring to open the cash drawer in the ticket office. If an attempt was made to open this drawer without knowing the combination, a bell would ring. This ringing kept up for some little time, when it ceased, and Auer heard some one walking along the platform towards the ladies' waiting room where he was lying. The door was opened and a negro man came in. He was dressed in a long, light-colored raincoat, and had on a light checked cap. The waiting room was lighted by electric lights, which enabled Auer to see the negro's features and note his clothing. Upon the trial Auer identified the accused, and also the raincoat and cap worn by him at the time of his arrest, as being like those worn by the negro who came into the waiting room. The cash drawer, which had contained about $11, was found broken open and the money taken therefrom. The stove poker, which belonged to the stove in the ticket office, was bent and lying upon a little shelf just above the money drawer.

From Carrollton to Kansas City the Wabash trains run over the track of the Santa Fé Railway Company. Early in the morning of December 10th a Wabash train en route to Kansas City arrived at Lexington Junction, a station on the line of railway between Carrollton and Kansas City and about 25 miles from the former place. As this train stopped, the station agent of the railway company saw a negro man jump from the blind end of the baggage car. The agent, having heard of the robbery by wire, halted the negro and arrested him. At the time of his arrest he had on a light raincoat, a light checked cap, a sweater, and a pair of new shoes. He also had in a pocket of the sweater a slip of paper containing a memorandum. A secondhand dealer in merchandise at Carrollton, named Thomas, identified the raincoat, cap, sweater, and shoes as having been taken from his store on the night of the robbery. The slip of paper containing the memorandum found in the sweater pocket of the accused was identified by Thomas as a memorandum made by him at the time he purchased the garment in question, which he had put in the pocket. About 9 o'clock on the morning of December 10, 1914, a shotgun was found hidden near the approach to the scales of the stock pens, not far from the Wabash depot at Carrollton, and several loaded shells and a recently exploded shell were found near the gun. The shotgun was also identified by the witness Thomas as having belonged to him and that same had been stolen from his store the night of the robbery. The shot in the loaded shells were of the same size as those taken out of the body of Auer. The defendant made no statement before, nor did he testify at, the trial.

I. Information.—The information is based upon section 4530, R. S. 1909. It charges that the defendant took the money therein stated, the same being the property of said Jacob Auer, from his person, in his presence, and against his will, by force and violence to his person. While this charges both of the methods designated in the statute in defining the offense, it is, as we held in State v. Flynn, 258 Mo. 211, 167 S. W. 516, not duplicitous, because both methods may be pursued at the same time by the offender. The ruling in the Flynn Case, following that in State v. Calvert, 209 Mo. loc. cit. 286, 107 S. W. 1078, is in accord with the well-established doctrine of the criminal law (1 Bish. N. Cr. L. Pro. § 586) that:

"If a statute makes criminal the doing of this or that, mentioning several things disjunctively, there is but one offense, which may be committed in different ways; and in most instances all may be charged in a single count. But the conjunctive `and' must ordinarily in...