United States v. Briddle, 20113.

• Decision Date: 28 August 1970
• Docket Number: No. 20113.,20113.
• Citation: 430 F.2d 1335
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Russell Eugene BRIDDLE, Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

430 F.2d 1335 (1970)

UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Russell Eugene BRIDDLE, Appellant.

No. 20113.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

August 28, 1970.

Murry L. Randall, St. Louis, Mo., for appellant.

Harold E. Zahner, Asst. U. S. Atty., St. Louis, Mo., for appellee; Daniel Bartlett, Jr., U. S. Atty., St. Louis, Mo., on brief.

Before VOGEL, GIBSON and BRIGHT, Circuit Judges.

VOGEL, Circuit Judge.

Defendant-appellant was convicted by jury verdict on a one-count indictment which charged:

"That on or about the 27th day of June, 1969, in the County of St. Charles, in the State of Missouri, within the Eastern District of Missouri,

RUSSELL EUGENE BRIDDLE

did receive, conceal, barter, sell and dispose of a certain stolen motor vehicle, that is, a 1967 Cadillac, vehicle identification number F-7141387, which was moving as interstate commerce from New York City, State of New York, to St. Charles County, State of Missouri, and he then knew the motor vehicle to have been stolen.

"In violation of Section 2313, Title 18, United States Code."¹

Upon such conviction, the defendant was sentenced to a term of five years' imprisonment and to pay a fine of $5,000.

In this direct appeal, defendant requests a reversal on three separate grounds as follows: (1) The evidence was insufficient to show defendant knew the 1967 Cadillac had been stolen; (2) the evidence was insufficient to show that at the time of the alleged offense, on June 27, 1969, when defendant sold the car, the car was still moving as and a part of interstate commerce; (3) the court erred in limiting the cross-examination of the government witness Robert Mudd as to the location, and circumstances surrounding the finding of an alleged secretly placed identification number on the claimed stolen automobile.

A resolution of the claimed errors requires a fairly complete statement of the evidence presented to the trial jury:

Sometime during the night of July 11-12, 1968, a baroque gold 1967 Cadillac convertible, having identification number F7141387, was stolen from the garage of Jerome Charles Friedman in Bayside, New York. At the time of the theft and for some time thereafter the defendant herein was confined in the Missouri penitentiary at Jefferson City, Missouri, serving a five-year sentence. He was released from the Missouri penitentiary on October 31, 1968, so accordingly could not have been an active participant in the theft.

Defendant himself chose not to testify at his trial. His story as to how he acquired the stolen Cadillac in St. Louis, Missouri, was given to an FBI Agent on October 21, 1969, when questioned as to the ownership of the vehicle. He stated to the agent that at "an unrecalled date" he was in a poker game with several individuals. The names of the individuals and the place of the poker game were not given. The defendant said that one of the players, "a stranger from New York", went broke during the poker game, that he had a 1967 Cadillac convertible and wanted to sell it so he, the defendant, gave the stranger $3,850 in cash and the stranger from New York gave him the registration for the car. The registration certificate appeared to have been issued by the State of New York and in the name of one James Mayberg. Concededly it was forged. Defendant took title to the Cadillac under the name of James Ferguson, an alias. He explained to the FBI Agent, when questioned about the matter, that he used the name James Ferguson and also the name Fox "to avoid constant harassment by the St. Louis Police Department".

On April 21, 1969, the defendant, using the name James Ferguson, and the forged New York title to the automobile, registered it with the Missouri Motor Vehicle Registration Unit, paying the sales tax on a purchase price of $3,850 and obtaining a Missouri title issued to him in the name of James Ferguson on May 14, 1969. In doing so, he gave his address as 2730 South 13th Street, St. Louis, Missouri, and the title was sent to such address. Actually, this was the address of a bonding company and automobile license agency where a friend of the defendant's worked.

After having the car repainted and using it for approximately two months, the defendant traded it to the Ken Bender Buick Pontiac Automobile Agency in St. Charles, Missouri, as partial payment for a 1969 Buick Electra demonstrator. One or two days later he traded the Buick through the same agency for a new 1969 Buick Riviera. Defendant took title to both of the cars in the name of James Ferguson and in dealing with the agency he used the same name. In making the latter automobile purchases, defendant gave his address as that of a St. Louis cafe located at 4111 Manchester.

During the time the defendant had the Cadillac from sometime in April to June 1969, its gold color was repainted blue with a black top. The evidence indicated that the public serial numbers on the 1967 Cadillac had been changed. This, however, was not discovered by the Ken Bender Agency either when they purchased the Cadillac from the defendant or later sold it. Subsequently it was discovered that the public serial numbers on the Cadillac had been changed to numbers which were actually on a 1967 gold Cadillac convertible owned in the State of New Jersey. Sergeant Robert Mudd, Missouri State Highway Patrol, testified that all such automobiles have their serial number placed in one confidential location in addition to three known public locations. He found the so-called confidential number on the automobile and ascertained it to be F7141387, the serial number of the automobile which had been owned by and stolen from Mr. Friedman on June 11-12, 1968. Mudd testified that the location of the confidential number was not published in any document, that its location on this car was given to him by word of mouth from the National Auto Theft Bureau. In cross-examination of Mudd, the trial court refused to permit questions of the witness as to the location of the confidential number. In addition to the confidential number to which Mudd testified, he also said that in the inside of the trunk there appeared a sort of "Fleet sticker". Mr. Friedman, the original owner of the Cadillac automobile, testified that he had placed such a sticker to the back of the inside panel in the trunk of the car, thus further adding to the identification.

In considering this appeal and particularly defendant's first two points involving the defendant's challenge as to the sufficiency of the evidence, we must, as an appellate court, view that evidence in the light most favorable to sustaining the jury verdict, and we accept as established all reasonable inferences that tend to support the jury's determination. United States v. Lodwick, 8 Cir., 1969, 410 F.2d 1202; Kayser v. United States, 8 Cir., 1968, 394 F.2d 601, cert. denied 393 U.S. 919, 89 S.Ct. 250, 21 L.Ed.2d 206.

I. Defendant's first point challenges the sufficiency of the evidence upon which the jury determined that the defendant knew the Cadillac was stolen. We think the evidence in that regard is more than sufficient. We enumerate some of the factors upon which the jury may have relied in their determination of knowledge on the part of the defendant that the Cadillac was a stolen vehicle.

1. It was purchased at nighttime from "a stranger from New York", called Jim.

2. It was paid for in cash.

3. Defendant took title in the name of James Ferguson, which was an alias.

4. Defendant gave as his address one other than that where he resided.

5. He applied for a transfer of title to Missouri using the name James Ferguson and again gave a different address than his actual residence.

6. Defendant had the gold car painted blue, obviously in an effort to disguise it.

7. When the defendant traded the car in toward a 1969 Buick demonstrator, he handled the transaction in the name of James Ferguson, again giving an address other than that at which he actually resided.

8. Defendant allegedly purchased the car in April for $3,850 cash but accepted a trade-in credit of only $3,269 approximately two months later.

9. When he traded the Buick demonstrator in for a new 1969 Buick Riviera, he again did business in the name of James Ferguson and again gave an address other than that at which he actually resided.

We believe this evidence ample for the jury's use in arriving at the conclusion that the defendant was well aware of the fact that the 1967 Cadillac convertible which he purchased sometime in April was a stolen vehicle. Possibly no one or two of the aforementioned facts would, in themselves, justify a holding that the defendant had knowledge that the car was stolen. Nevertheless, in totality we think they amply support the conclusion of knowledge on the part of the defendant and accordingly we find no error on his first contention.

II. Defendant next presents the question of whether the evidence was sufficient to show that at the time of the alleged crime, i. e., June 27th when the stolen car was traded in for a demonstrator, it was still a part of interstate commerce. Had the vehicle come to rest and not reentered commerce, its character would then destroy any application of the so-called Dyer Act.

Ordinarily, the question of when a stolen car has been removed from interstate commerce and entered intrastate commerce is to be resolved by the jury. Powell v. United States, 5 Cir., 1969, 410 F.2d 710; Roberson v. United States, 5 Cir., 1956, 237 F.2d 536; cf. Lee v. United States, 8 Cir., 1966, 363 F.2d 469, at 475, cert. denied 385 U.S. 947, 87 S.Ct. 323, 17 L.Ed.2d 227. No hard and fast rule can or should be made; rather, each case must stand or fall on its own merits. See, Annotation, Validity and Construction of the National Motor Vehicle Theft Act, 56 A.L. R.2d 1309, at 1340. The mere fact that a completed sale has taken place does not in and of itself destroy operation of the Act and the car may even reenter interstate commerce after it has once come to...