U.S. v. Walton

• Decision Date: 05 August 1976
• Docket Number: 75-1722,Nos. 75-1721,s. 75-1721
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Leadell WALTON, Appellant. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Eddie Lee TURNER, Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

Page 1348

538 F.2d 1348

UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Leadell WALTON, Appellant.

UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Eddie Lee TURNER, Appellant.

Nos. 75-1721, 75-1722.

United States Court of Appeals,

Eighth Circuit.

Submitted Jan. 14, 1976.

Decided Aug. 5, 1976.

Michael J. McDonald, St. Louis, Mo., for appellant, Leadell Walton in No. 75-1721.

Richard Ong, Clayton, Mo., for appellant, Eddie Lee Turner in No. 75-1722.

Frederick R. Buckles, Asst. U. S. Atty., St. Louis, Mo., for appellee; Donald J Stohr (former U. S. Atty., effective May 15th Barry A. Short, U. S. Atty.), and Frederick R. Buckles, Asst. U. S. Atty., St. Louis, Mo., on brief.

Before CLARK, Associate Justice, ^* BRIGHT and HENLEY, Circuit Judges.

HENLEY, Circuit Judge.

Following a joint jury trial conducted in September, 1975 defendants, Leadell Walton and Eddie Lee Turner, were convicted in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri ¹ of the offense of aggravated armed robbery of a savings and loan association in the City of St. Louis, Missouri, the deposits in which association were insured by the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation, an agency of the United States. 18 U.S.C. § 2113(a) and (d). Both defendants were sentenced to imprisonment for terms of twenty-five years but with the stipulation that they should be eligible for parole at the discretion of the Parole Board. 18 U.S.C. § 4208(a). Both defendants have appealed, and their appeals have been consolidated and considered together.

The one-count indictment returned by the grand jury charged that on or about July 18, 1975 the defendants, who have been identified, and a third defendant, Leland Browner, robbed the New Age Federal Savings and Loan Association in St. Louis of approximately $16,500.00, and that in the course of the robbery they employed deadly weapons and imperilled the life of Gwendolyn Frost, an employee of the association.

Counsel for Walton and Turner filed numerous pretrial motions, including motions to suppress evidence and motions for separate trials. Those motions were denied in whole or in part, and, as indicated, defendants were tried jointly; however, they were represented by different attorneys.

Over the objection of the defendants the district court admitted into evidence the confession of Walton which implicated Turner, and the confession of Turner which implicated Walton. ² The district court also admitted over objections items of evidence recovered as a result of Turner's confession and as a result of a warrantless search of an automobile that Walton had purchased for cash very shortly after the robbery. In connection with the confessions, the district court refused to cause the name of Turner to be deleted from Walton's confession and similarly refused to cause the name of Walton to be deleted from Turner's confession.

There is no question that on the occasion in question the savings and loan association was robbed by three men armed with pistols and that shots were fired in the course of the robbery although no one was wounded or killed. As the robbery was in progress, photographs of the robbers were taken by surveillance cameras.

Ms. Frost, who has been mentioned, was able positively to identify Walton as the man who threatened her and forced her to turn a large sum of the association's money over to him. As the robbers fled from the association's place of business, they were observed by Ms. Donna Harris who was sitting in an automobile parked outside the establishment. She testified that one of the men was wearing a white hat, white shirt and white scarf. She described another as wearing a blue denim hat and a blue shirt with stripes on it. At trial she identified Turner as the man wearing the blue hat and striped shirt. She also identified Turner as the individual appearing in one of the pictures taken by a surveillance camera.

The robbery was investigated jointly by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and by the St. Louis Police Department; it appears that in the investigation Captain Troupe of the Police Department played the principal part.

After the robbery Captain Troupe learned through an informant who had supplied reliable information to the Department for some thirty years that the men who had robbed the association were Walton, Browner and a third man whom the informant knew by sight but not by name.

Later the informant advised Troupe that at a given time and place in or near Normandy in St. Louis County, Missouri, Walton and the "third man" could be found in a parked automobile. At the time indicated Officer Tom Ferguson of the Normandy Police Department, dressed in his official uniform, went to the scene, observed a parked automobile with two men in it. As he left his own car and approached the parked vehicle, the two men fled. He pursued one of them, and while he was not able to catch the fugitive he came close enough to him to identify him as Turner.

Soon thereafter Captain Troupe and other St. Louis officers arrived on the scene. A license check on the parked vehicle revealed that the license had been issued to Walton but for another vehicle. At this time the doors of the car were unlocked and the windows were down. The car was processed for fingerprints. The car was then searched, and the officers found in the glove compartment a title document which indicated that Walton had bought the car from a used car dealer on July 19, 1975, the day after the robbery, for $1200.00. The used car dealer testified at the trial that he had sold the car to Walton, and that Walton had paid for it with twenty dollar bills.

The parked car was searched on July 21, 1975, and later on the same day Turner was arrested on the basis of the description supplied by Officer Ferguson. The arresting officer identified Turner as the man whom he had arrested, and Officer Ferguson identified Turner as the man whom he had chased unsuccessfully.

On July 22 Turner was identified in a police lineup as one of the robbers by Ms. Harris. On July 24 Turner made a confession to Special Agent Hess of the FBI and implicated Walton. As a result of Turner's confession the investigating officers were able to recover the clothes that he wore in the robbery and about $1700.00 which was Turner's unexpended portion of the proceeds of the robbery. Also as a result of the Turner confession the officers were able to locate the automobile that had been used by the robbers as a getaway car, and the prints of both Walton and Turner were found on or in that vehicle.

Walton was not arrested until August 11. On August 12 he was interviewed by Special Agent Northcutt of the FBI and gave a confession in which he implicated Turner.

The facts as above stated were established at the trial by witnesses for the government. While both Walton and Turner testified at the pretrial hearing which the district court held in connection with the motions filed by the defendants, neither of them testified at the trial. Turner called no witnesses. Walton attempted to establish an alibi through the testimony of his sister.

Assuming the admissibility of the government's evidence, it is obvious that it established the guilt of the defendants not only substantially but overwhelmingly, and the defendants do not contend to the contrary. They base their appeals on other grounds, all of which we have considered, but not all of which do we find it necessary to set out or discuss.

The defendants contend, principally it seems to us, that the district court erred in not granting separate trials, in admitting into evidence the interlocking confessions of the defendants, and in not deleting from Walton's confession reference to Turner and in not taking the converse course with respect to Turner's confession.

Both defendants also contend that the district court erred in admitting evidence obtained as a result of the warrantless examination and search of the automobile that Walton purchased after the robbery.

Turner, individually, claims that his confession was not voluntary and should have been suppressed, and that the district court also erred in admitting evidence obtained as a result of the information disclosed by Turner in his confession.

We take up first the claim last mentioned. The district court held a full evidentiary hearing on the several motions filed by the defendants and refused to suppress their confessions. In that connection the district court did not make initially the specific findings required by this court in Evans v. United States, 375 F.2d 355, 360 (8th Cir. 1967). ³ A similar failure to make findings was recently involved in United States v. Johnson, 529 F.2d 581 (8th Cir. 1976). There, we remanded the case to the district court for the purpose of enabling it to make and certify to this court appropriate findings. We followed the same course here. The district court duly made and certified adequate findings to us which we have considered.

The district court found ultimately that the confessions of both defendants were made freely and voluntarily after Miranda warnings were given and after the respective defendants had knowingly and intelligently waived their rights not to incriminate themselves and to be represented by retained or appointed counsel during their interrogations.

We are convinced that the findings just mentioned have substantial evidentiary support in the record, and are not clearly erroneous. Therefore, aside from the claim that the district court erred in admitting both confessions in the course of a joint trial of the two defendants, we conclude that the confessions were properly admitted, from which conclusion it follows that the government was also entitled to introduce evidence which was discovered as a result of Turner's confession.

What has just been said brings us to a consideration of the defendants' contention that the confessions, even if otherwise admissible, should not have been admitted in view...