United States v. Grimes, 15363.

• Decision Date: 04 June 1964
• Docket Number: No. 15363.,15363.
• Citation: 332 F.2d 1014
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Robert GRIMES, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

332 F.2d 1014 (1964)

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Robert GRIMES, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 15363.

United States Court of Appeals Sixth Circuit.

June 4, 1964.

Frank E. Haddad, Jr., Louisville, Ky., for appellant.

Ernest W. Rivers, Asst. U. S. Atty., Louisville, Ky., for appellee, William E. Scent, U. S. Atty., Louisville, Ky., on the brief.

Before MILLER, Circuit Judge, and LEVIN and KENT, District Judges.

KENT, District Judge.

Defendant appeals after having been convicted by a jury under each of two counts of an indictment, which charged in the first count that he, together with Herbert Henry Staedtler, did by force, violence and intimidation take from the person and presence of Jerome C. Hertweck money of the Royal Bank and Trust Company, Highland office, Louisville, Kentucky, and in the second count, that the defendant did take such money from the person and while engaged in said acts did put in jeopardy the life of said Jerome C. Hertweck by the use of a dangerous weapon, to-wit, a firearm.

It was the theory and claim of the Government that the defendant did aid and abet Herbert Henry Staedtler in the commission of the offenses charged and was therefore guilty as a principal. On trial the defendant Grimes was convicted and was thereafter sentenced to serve 25 years in the penitentiary. Staedtler admitted that he robbed the bank, pleaded guilty upon arraignment and was sentenced. He was brought back to testify at the trial of Grimes.

The theory of the appeal is that there was not sufficient evidence to sustain the conviction in the trial court. Appropriate motions were made at the end of the Government's proofs, and at the end of all the proofs, for a judgment of acquittal. The motions were denied by the trial judge.

The evidence for the Government established that Staedtler and Grimes had been "friends" before the robbery of the Royal Bank and Trust Company, Highland office, in Louisville, on April 25, 1962. The evidence for the Government further established that only one person, Staedtler, entered the bank, only one person, Staedtler, robbed the bank, and there was no evidence that any other person than Staedtler was in the vicinity of the bank before, during or after the robbery. Admittedly, Staedtler was armed at the time he robbed the bank.

After the manager of the bank identified Staedtler as the robber, agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and a Louisville policeman went to the home of the defendant Robert Grimes, found Staedtler there and arrested him at about 2:30 P.M., the robbery having occurred at twelve o'clock noon. A search of the premises by the officers turned up a suitcase containing money which a subsequent count disclosed to be $16,746. The amount stolen from the bank was $17,526. Grimes was not at home at the time that Staedtler was arrested and the original search was made. One of the witnesses, a Louisville policeman, testified that while searching the house, seeking the gun with which the officers believed Staedtler had been armed, he poked in certain cannisters on the kitchen cupboard and found no foreign material or substance in any of them. It was not too clear, from the evidence, as to whether the officer looked in the cannister in such manner as to find anything that might have been in the cannister.

At about eight o'clock in the evening on the same day, two F.B.I. agents returned to the Grimes home and found Grimes there with some of his relatives. The agents informed Grimes that some of the money was still missing and said they would like to search the house, to which Grimes agreed. During the course of the search the defendant's wife, who was assisting in the search, found $780.00 (the amount missing) hidden in a cannister of flour on the kitchen cupboard. The money was lying on top of the flour. Upon questioning, Grimes refused to divulge where he had been during the period of time between 10:30 A.M. and 2:00 P.M. on that day, which was the day of the robbery. At the time of the questioning Grimes knew that Staedtler had been arrested in his home, for robbery of the bank.

The Government offered evidence to establish that Staedtler drove an automobile into a garage in the vicinity of St. James School between noon and 1:00 P. M., that he got out of the car which he was driving and got into another car, a dark, metallic blue, 1959 Chevrolet Impala, which had been waiting and which was occupied by one man who was never identified except by a very general description.

Grimes testified during the course of the trial that the only car he owned, or to which he had had access, was a red and white 1959 Chevrolet Biscayne, and no evidence was offered to contravene this statement. Grimes stated that he had last seen Staedtler about three days before the robbery, although Staedtler's landlady testified that she had seen Grimes at Staedtler's apartment the night before the robbery. On cross-examination she admitted that she could not remember the date or the occurrence and her testimony was very weak.

Grimes explained, on the trial, that the reason for refusing to divulge his whereabouts between 10:30 A.M. and 2:00 P. M., on the date of the robbery, was because he had been in trouble on a previous occasion, that he ascribed his difficulty, which resulted in a prison sentence, to the fact that he had talked to the police officers and he claimed that his story had been twisted. On the trial he claimed an alibi and offered evidence from relatives to establish his whereabouts at all the appropriate times between 10:30 A.M. and long after 2:00 P. M. The Government offered evidence to impeach some of the alibi testimony.

Staedtler took the stand and testified on behalf of Grimes. He testified that he robbed the bank alone without any assistance from Grimes or anyone else, that Grimes had no knowledge of the robbery, except as he had gained it from radio and newspaper statements, that the money in the cannister in the kitchen of the Grimes home had been placed there by Staedtler when he saw the officers...