State v. Woodson
| Decision Date | 05 January 1914 |
| Citation | 162 S.W. 327,175 Mo.App. 393 |
| Parties | STATE OF MISSOURI, Respondent, v. WILLIAM WOODSON and MARTHA WOODSON, Appellants |
| Court | Kansas Court of Appeals |
Appeal from Lafayette Criminal Court.--Hon. John A. Rich, Judge.
REVERSED.
Judgment reversed.
Chiles & Chiles and Clarence Vivion for appellants.
Charles A. Keith for respondent.
The defendants, a colored man and his wife, were, under section 4554, Revised Statutes 1909, jointly charged by an information in one count with having feloniously received property of the value of thirty-seven dollars, knowing it to have been feloniously stolen.
The jury returned the following verdict: "We the jury find the defendants guilty as charged in the information and assess the punishment of each as follows, William Woodson at a fine of $ 100 and Martha Woodson at a fine of $ 100.
"GEORGE A. KLINGENBERY, Foreman."
An appeal was taken to this court. But we were of the opinion that, as the information charged a felony and as the jury found the defendants guilty of a felony, we were without jurisdiction to hear the cause, and, therefore, ordered it transferred to the Supreme Court. As we viewed the verdict the jury had not found the defendants guilty of a misdemeanor, but had found them guilty of a felony and had assessed a punishment below the legal limit, in which case it was the trial judge's duty to pronounce sentence and render judgment according to the lowest limit prescribed by law. [Sec. 5255, R. S. 1909.] There was no controversy over the value of the goods; they were clearly worth more than thirty dollars; and while the jury were not bound by the testimony as to the value or the quantity received, yet as the jury did not say they were of less value but said the defendants were guilty as charged, it was as reasonable to suppose that the jury erroneously assessed a punishment below the limit as that they arbitrarily fixed the value of the goods below thirty dollars. As we understood it, the case was not like State v. Greenspan, 137 Mo. 149, 38 S.W. 582, for there the jury found that the stolen property received was of less value than thirty dollars. We felt that even if the verdict, owing to the punishment assessed, could be construed as convicting the defendants of a misdemeanor only, yet, as the verdict expressly said the defendants were guilty as charged, the question to be decided was whether it was a conviction of a felony or a misdemeanor, and, in that event, the proper tribunal to pass on that question is the Supreme Court. According to its terms, the verdict found the defendants guilty of a felony. If this was correct, then clearly the Supreme Court had jurisdiction and not we. If, on the other hand, it was doubtful whether it was a verdict of felony or misdemeanor still the Supreme Court ought to pass on that question, since it must be the judge of what is or is not within its jurisdiction.
The Supreme Court has passed on the case, however, and has held that jurisdiction is with us. [State v. Woodson et al., 154 S.W. 705.] While the decision does not specifically say so, we infer that the holding of the Supreme Court is, in effect, that the above verdict must be construed to be a conviction of misdemeanor only. When the nature of the verdict has been thus determined by the Supreme Court to be merely a conviction of misdemeanor, logically the jurisdiction to pass upon the alleged errors in the case is with us, especially as the cases of State v McMahill, 214 Mo. 310, 113 S.W. 1071, and State v. Wilson, 230 Mo. 647, 132 S.W. 238, have been overruled. [State v. Woodson et al., supra.]
The foregoing is here stated in order that our reasons for having transferred the case to the Supreme Court may be known and understood. We felt that wherever there was a doubt as to whether jurisdiction was with the Supreme Court or with us, the Supreme Court should be the body to resolve that doubt. The Supreme Court having resolved that doubt by declaring the jurisdiction of this case to be in us, we proceed to a consideration of the case itself.
The defendants are respectable colored persons who have resided in their community for years, and who have hitherto borne good reputations. They ran a restaurant and rooming house in Lexington, or rather the wife did in the daytime, assisted at night by her husband who was a coal miner and who worked at the mines during the day.
The property charged to have been received, consisting of a pistol valued at fifteen dollars and four pairs of shoes valued at twenty-two dollars, was stolen by two negro men who were entire strangers in the town, but who, it afterwards was discovered, were exconvicts. However, the defendants did not know this. These two men came to Lexington about the first of March, 1912, stopping first...
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