State v. Brown

360 S.W.2d 618, 1962 Mo. LEXIS 611
CourtSupreme Court of Missouri
DecidedOctober 8, 1962
Docket49221
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 360 S.W.2d 618 (State v. Brown) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Brown, 360 S.W.2d 618, 1962 Mo. LEXIS 611 (Mo. 1962).

Opinion

COIL, Commissioner.

A jury convicted John Allen Brown, Jr., of robbery in the first degree and fixed his punishment at ten years in the state penitentiary. He has filed no brief on his appeal from the ensuing judgment and thus we examine the assignments of error contained in his motion for new trial.

Assignment 4 charges that the trial court erred in failing to sustain defendant’s motion for judgment of acquittal at the close of the state’s case. Defendant offered evidence in his defense and thereby waived the motion. State v. Hutchin, Mo., 353 S.W.2d 701, 702 [2].

Defendant’s assignment 5 challenges the sufficiency of .all the evidence to have made a submissible case. The evidence viewed from a standpoint favorable to the state tended to show that Richard Davis was employed at a Gold Crown Liquor Store in Kansas City and, about 11:20 on the night of May 23, 1961, he was in the store talking with a customer, Mr. Halsey, when a man, later identified as the defendant, grabbed him around the neck, pointed a revolver at both Davis and Halsey, forced them into a rear room where defendant took their money and shot and wounded Halsey. Davis and Halsey were then ordered to the basement. When they discovered that defendant and another man, apparently with defendant, had left, they returned to the store, called the police, and discovered that $40 had been taken from the cash register. Davis later identified the man who grabbed him around the neck, pointed the gun at him, and took his money, as the defendant. Defendant and-a companion were arrested in the early morning of May 25, 1961, and, while being searched, a revolver dropped from defendant’s clothing to the ground. The bullet which wounded Halsey at the time of the robbery had been fired from that gun.

It is apparent from the foregoing summary of the evidence that a jury reasonably could have found that defendant feloniously took money from Davis’s person against his will by putting him in fear of immediate injury to his person, and was thereby guilty of robbery in the first degree. Section 560.-120 RSMo 1959 and V.A.M.S.

Defendant’s new trial assignment 1 is that the trial court “erred in refusing defendant’s instruction numbered-as to alibi and giving the State’s instruction numbered five (5) as to alibi.” The foregoing specification is too general to preserve any *620 thing' for appellate review. Supreme Court Rule 27.20, V.A.M.R.; State v. Gannaway, Mo., 313 S.W.2d 653, 655 [2]. We have, nevertheless, examined the alibi instruction given by the trial court and find that it adequately submitted the alibi defense.

Assignment 2 complains of that portion of the “presumption of innocence” instruction which told the jury that a doubt to authorize an acquittal ought to be a substantial doubt and not a mere possibility of defendant’s innocence. The entire paragraph which contained the phrase to which objection is made was the second paragraph of instruction 4. The first paragraph told the jury that the law presumed defendant’s innocence and that the presumption entitled defendant to an acquittal unless the evidence as a whole satisfied the jury of defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The second paragraph was : “The Court instructs the jury that if they have a reasonable doubt of defendant’s guilt, they should acquit, but a doubt to authorize an acquittal on that ground ought to be a substantial doubt touching defendant’s guilt and not a mere possibility of defendant’s innocence.” The instruction does not, as defendant contends in his motion for new trial, place “the burden of proof of his innocence upon defendant,” nor does it weaken the state’s burden “of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.” State v. Drake, Mo., 298 S.W.2d 374, 377 [7,8].

Assignment 3 that the verdict of the jury was contrary to the law and evidence in the case “in that the evidence is not inconsistent with the innocence of the defendant” was too general to preserve anything for appellate review. Supreme Court Rule 27.20; State v. Townsend, Mo., 327 S.W.2d 886, 887 [2].

Assignment 6 is that the trial court “erred in limiting and refusing to permit defense counsel to cross examine the State’s witnesses as to what they remembered that they testified to in two previous trials of this defendant and in admonishing defense counsel upon his attempt to do so, for purpose of impeachment.” It is doubtful that the foregoing is sufficiently specific to preserve any question for appellate review. See State v. Pitts, Mo., 282 S.W.2d 561, 563 [10], and State v. Brewer, Mo., 325 S.W.2d 16, 19 [7]. We have, nevertheless, examined the record with respect to the error assigned. Defendant apparently refers to two instances in which the trial court indicated to defendant’s counsel that he could not cross-examine the state’s witnesses concerning their testimony at a prior trial of the same case or at a prior deposition unless he had before him a transcript of the witnesses’ testimony. The difficulty with defendant’s position is that in neither of the instances in question does the record show either that defendant’s counsel was in fact deprived of the opportunity to elicit whatever information he desired or that defendant’s counsel was not satisfied to abide by the court’s view with respect to cross-examination as it was explained to him. Defendant’s counsel made no objection to the court’s rulings and, on the record before us, we properly may not hold that the trial court unduly limited defendant’s counsel’s cross-examination of the state’s witnesses.

Assignment 7 complains of the admission in evidence of two records of the Western Union Telegraph Company purporting to show that defendant purchased a money order on a certain day. Defendant obj ected on the ground that the exhibits were inaccurate. His motion for new trial charges that the witness who identified the records did not make them nor was he the custodian of them at all times during the company’s business hours. As noted, defendant was arrested in the early morning of May 25. Defendant testified that shortly prior to his arrest he had been at a certain Western Union office purchasing a money order. In rebuttal, the state adduced the office manager of the Western Union office who identified Exhibit 16 as an office record, a copy of a receipt for a money order that had been issued to John Brown, Jr., at 5:25 a. m. on May 24, 1961, and identified Ex *621 hibit 15 as an office record, a daily cash report for May 24, 1961, indicating that the money order in question was issued on May 24, 1961. The witness testified that both exhibits were records made in the usual course of business of Western Union; that Exhibit 16 was made under the witness’s supervision at the time of the issuance of the money order, and Exhibit 15 was made at the completion of an employee’s regular daily tour of duty on May 24.

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Bluebook (online)
360 S.W.2d 618, 1962 Mo. LEXIS 611, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-brown-mo-1962.