State v. Allbritton

660 S.W.2d 322, 1983 Mo. App. LEXIS 4223
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedSeptember 20, 1983
Docket46747
StatusPublished
Cited by25 cases

This text of 660 S.W.2d 322 (State v. Allbritton) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Allbritton, 660 S.W.2d 322, 1983 Mo. App. LEXIS 4223 (Mo. Ct. App. 1983).

Opinion

SIMON, Presiding Judge.

Richard Berlin Allbritton (Allbritton) appeals from his convictions in the Circuit Court of Perry County on the following counts: forcible rape (rape); forcible sodomy (sodomy); attempted forcible rape (attempted rape); burglary, first degree (burglary); and a count of exhibiting a deadly weapon as contained in a separate cause. Both causes were tried together and All-britton was sentenced to three separate terms of life imprisonment for each count of rape, sodomy and attempted rape. He received a sentence of ten years for burglary and five years for the flourishing charge. All sentences are to be served consecutively. His appeal was originally filed in the Supreme Court of Missouri, but was transferred to our court.

On appeal, Allbritton contends the trial court erred in failing: (1) to sever the causes; (2) to define “serious physical injury” in the definitional instruction; (3) to give a separate instruction defining forcible rape in the verdict director for attempted rape; (4) to permit defense counsel to question a witness regarding her knowledge of Allbrit-ton prior to the rape; (5) to sustain Allbrit-ton’s motion in limine to prevent witnesses from testifying about Allbritton’s having been in the penitentiary; (6) to exclude xerox copies of photographs in that a proper foundation had not been laid; and (7) to refuse correction of a typographical error in a verdict director after the jury retired to deliberate. We affirm.

Allbritton does not contest the sufficiency of the evidence to support the verdict. A brief factual setting, most favorable to the jury verdict, will be set forth. State v. Stapleton, 518 S.W.2d 292, 296 (Mo. banc 1975).

On the evening of May 31, Timothy Duffy (Duffy) worked the night shift (10:00 p.m. to 6:30 a.m.) at a donut shop in Cape Girardeau. He testified that about midnight a man, he identified as Allbritton, came into the shop and stayed until 2:30 a.m. He asked Duffy if he could leave his bottle of liquor at the shop and pick it up later. Duffy placed the bottle, which was three-fourths empty, under the counter, but Allbritton never returned for it.

About a block from the donut shop, a young woman was awakened by a knock on her apartment door at about 3:00 a.m. Keeping the door chained, she answered the door, and a man later identified as Allbrit-ton, asked for her by name. He informed her that he had hit a small blue Pinto in the apartment’s parking lot.and someone told him it might belong to her. Since the description matched her Pinto, she told All-britton she would call the police to report the accident. Allbritton claimed he was drunk and begged her not to, promising to pay for the damage. She requested some identification, whereupon Allbritton handed her his driver’s license and car title. After copying down the information, she dressed and went to look at the damage to her car. In fact, there was no damage, nor was there any car with signs of a recent collision on the lot. Allbritton’s car was not there either. Allbritton said his friend must have gotten frightened and fled in the car. They returned to her apartment so that she could give him back his driver’s license and car title. As she entered her apartment, All-britton placed his left foot in the doorway. He insisted she give him the paper she had written his license and title numbers on. She could not remember where she had *325 placed this information, but promised to destroy the paper when she found it. All-britton claimed he wanted the paper because he was afraid she could get him on a DWI and he did not want to go back to the penitentiary. When Allbritton stepped into the apartment, she became frightened, and began to scream. Allbritton ordered her to stop screaming, pulled a knife from his pocket, and placed it to her neck. As she tried to get away from Allbritton, a Kool cigarette he had been smoking somehow caught her hair on fire.

Jeff Hamilton (Hamilton), the resident manager of the apartment complex, had received a call reporting the screams. Hamilton testified he noticed the young woman was very upset when she opened the door and told him that Allbritton refused to leave her apartment. Upon Hamilton’s arrival, Allbritton left the apartment and Hamilton’s girlfriend called the police. An officer obtained a description of Allbritton and details of the incident from the victim. She gave a written statement at the station at 4:00 a.m. A Kool brand cigarette butt found at her apartment later that day was taken to the police station as evidence.

Around 4:30 a.m., at a residence about a 45 minute walk from the apartment, a mother and her 14 year old daughter were sleeping. The mother was awakened by a man touching her face. The man was later identified as Allbritton. When she woke, Allbritton apologized, claiming he had been working late and had accidentally entered her house instead of the home of a woman he lived with. She asked him if he could find his way out, Allbritton answered affirmatively, and started to leave the room. Meanwhile, her daughter awoke and went into the kitchen to get a drink of water. Allbritton waited for the daughter to return to her room before going down the hallway as if he was leaving. When the woman did not hear the front door open or close, she got out of bed to investigate. Finding Allbritton standing in the living room, she reached for the front door knob in order to let him out, but Allbritton put his hand on her to stop her, placed his other hand behind her back and began backing her up against the wall. She ordered him to leave and a struggle ensued. Hearing the commotion, the daughter came out of her bedroom and asked what was going on. Her mother told her to return to her room and call the police. But, apparently concerned for her mother’s safety, she remained. During the struggle, Allbritton got his knife out, hit her mother in the face with his knee, and cut her hand with the knife. He ordered the daughter to lie down on the floor or else he would kill her mother. She obeyed and he threw the mother down beside her on the floor of the living room. Allbritton ordered both women to remove their underpants, and when they did not comply, he rubbed the blade of the knife up and down their backs and legs. He threatened to cut the mother’s throat if she continued to resist. He then removed their underpants and his own pants. After unsuccessfully attempting to have intercourse with both women, Allbritton ordered the daughter to sit up. The mother offered to sit up instead but when she tried to, he pushed her head down and cut the back of her neck with his knife. Allbritton forced the daughter to commit oral sodomy, then raped her. Afterward, he took her into the bathroom and wiped her off with a washrag to get rid of any evidence. The mother remained lying on the floor because Allbrit-ton threatened to harm her daughter if she moved.

Allbritton returned to the living room, grabbed both women, took them into a bedroom, turned on the light and asked if anyone else was in the house. They answered that no one else was in the house and he ordered the daughter back to the living room, reminding her if she tried to do anything, he would kill her mother. Allbritton took the mother into the bedroom and threw her on the bed telling her to get down on the floor, because “he was ready to go again.” While she was kneeling, he told her he wanted her money. He took her into the kitchen to look for her purse and his cigarettes.

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Bluebook (online)
660 S.W.2d 322, 1983 Mo. App. LEXIS 4223, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-allbritton-moctapp-1983.