State v. Coe

574 P.2d 929, 223 Kan. 153, 1977 Kan. LEXIS 393
CourtSupreme Court of Kansas
DecidedNovember 22, 1977
Docket48,516
StatusPublished
Cited by47 cases

This text of 574 P.2d 929 (State v. Coe) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Kansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Coe, 574 P.2d 929, 223 Kan. 153, 1977 Kan. LEXIS 393 (kan 1977).

Opinion

The opinion of the court was delivered by

Schroeder, C.J.:

This is an appeal from a conviction and sentence of the trial court in Lyon County. The jury found Bobby D. Coe, Jr., (defendant-appellant) guilty of two counts of aggravated robbery (K.S.A. 21-3427). The trial court sentenced Coe to imprisonment for 45 years to life on each count and decreed the sentences to run consecutively.

The appellant asserts numerous trial errors on appeal.

Kathy Gibson and her husband own the Maverick Club, a private Class B club, located just outside the city limits of Emporia. At approximately 3:00 a.m. on September 17, 1975, shortly after closing hours, two men entered an open front door of the club and took a cash box containing $250, and $29 in cash, a draft card and various identification cards from Charles Stroud, a club musician.

The robbers were described as a black man and a white man or a “salt and pepper” team. They were wearing dark stocking caps and women’s hosiery over their heads. The white man carried a sawed-off shotgun. After the robbery, they left in a small, 4-cyl-inder car.

On September 19, 1975, J. Vernon Humphrey, a KBI agent investigating the robbery, and a local police officer stopped the *155 appellant for speeding in downtown Emporia. Believing the appellant and his passenger, Carl Buckner, to be possible suspects in the Maverick robbery, Agent Humphrey asked them to accompany him to the Emporia Police Station for questioning. After being advised of his Miranda rights, the appellant was questioned and released. During the course of this conversation, he voluntarily allowed the officers to obtain a hair sample.

Early in the morning of September 21, 1975, the appellant, accompanied by Buckner and two women, drove to Utica, Kansas, to the home of a friend, Steven Dimitt. Dimitt testified the appellant feared they were “hot” and asked to stay with Dimitt and his wife for several weeks. While the two were reminiscing about old times, the appellant told Dimitt he had “pulled the Maverick Club robbery. ” Dimitt, who was on parole at the time, promptly notified local Ness County authorities, who contacted Agent Humphrey. After talking with Dimitt and his wife, Agent Humphrey and Lyon County Sheriff Daniel Andrews arrested the appellant and Carl Buckner at the Dimitts’ home on September 22, 1975.

A more detailed statement of the facts may be found in the companion case of State v. Buckner, 223 Kan. 138, 574 P.2d 918.

The appellant and Buckner were separately charged with the same counts of aggravated robbery. At the appellant’s preliminary hearing, Agent Humphrey testified the appellant, a white man, and Buckner, a black man, developed as possible suspects because a field investigation report from the Emporia Police Department stated these two individuals lived together, associated together, had access to a car similar in description to the one used in the robbery, and a cap had been found with the initials “BDC” on it along with other items known to have been taken in the robbery. Agent Humphrey had obtained a verbal report from the KBI laboratory that they had a possible match-up on hair samples taken from the cap and the appellant on September 19. Further, Humphrey testified following the arrest, he asked the appellant what he had done with the shotgun used in the robbery and the appellant replied he “threw it away.”

Subsequently, the appellant and Buckner were bound over for trial. Both men unsuccessfully moved the trial court to consolidate the two cases for trial. The appellant also moved, without *156 success, to suppress as evidence the hair samples and his oral statements made to Agent Humphrey following the arrest, and to obtain a transcript of the suppression hearing.

Carl Buckner was tried prior to the appellant. Prior to Buckner’s trial, the appellant moved to obtain a transcript of the upcoming proceedings. This motion was denied as premature. At both Buckner’s preliminary hearing and trial Steven Dimitt invoked his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, when asked if he was using marijuana at the time the appellant allegedly made incriminating statements to him.

At the appellant’s trial none of the witnesses to the Maverick robbery were able to positively identify the appellant, a man 6 feet 3 inches weighing 155 pounds, as the white robber.

Kathy Gibson, who was within fifteen to twenty feet of the men during the robbery, described the white robber as a blond man of fairly small build and average height of 5 feet 8 inches to 5 feet 9 inches, carrying a sawed-off shotgun.

Sheryl York, assistant manager of the Maverick Club, was cleaning tables when the robbery occurred. She testified the black man was “extremely taller than the white man.” She too described the white robber as 5 feet 8 inches to 5 feet 9 inches and was unable to identify the appellant as the man in the club. Similar testimony was given by Charles Stroud.

Thus, Steven Dimitt’s testimony became especially crucial to the appellant. By oral motion, he unsuccessfully moved to have Dimitt’s testimony limited to exclude the remarks relating to the confession of the robbery. The trial court also sustained an objection to the appellant’s question to Mr. Dimitt as to whether Mr. Dimitt was smoking marijuana at the time of the conversation. On January 8, 1976, the jury found the appellant guilty of both counts. His motion for a new trial was overruled.

After the appellant had been sentenced and while his case was pending on appeal to this court, his counsel learned of newly discovered evidence and a second motion for a new trial was made. Accordingly, the appeal was stayed and the case remanded to the district court of Lyon County for a hearing on this motion. The evidence consisted of a robbery by a similar “salt and pepper” team which took place in the Emporia area five months prior to the Maverick robbery. The appellant, who was incarcerated at the Kansas State Industrial Reformatory at the time of *157 the earlier robbery, had an iron-clad alibi. The appellant suggested the same “salt and pepper” team committed both robberies. Thereafter, the motion was overruled and the appellant’s appeal reinstated.

I. Consolidation of Trials

The appellant first contends the trial court erred in ruling it was without authority to order a joint trial of the appellant and Carl Buckner.

After the appellant and Buckner were separately indicted on charges of aggravated robbery, , the two men moved the court to grant them a joint trial. The trial court denied the motion ruling it was without authority to order a consolidated trial.

K.S.A. 22-3204 specifically grants power to sever; however, the statute is silent concerning the power of the trial court to grant or to deny a motion to consolidate. It provides:

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
574 P.2d 929, 223 Kan. 153, 1977 Kan. LEXIS 393, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-coe-kan-1977.