State v. Corona

685 S.W.2d 931, 1985 Mo. App. LEXIS 3920
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedJanuary 11, 1985
DocketNo. 13510
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 685 S.W.2d 931 (State v. Corona) 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. Corona, 685 S.W.2d 931, 1985 Mo. App. LEXIS 3920 (Mo. Ct. App. 1985).

Opinion

CROW, Judge.

Appellant (“Corona”), charged with committing the class B felony of burglary in the first degree, § 569.160.1(3), RSMo 1978, by unlawfully entering an apartment occupied by B_ J. P_ (“complainant”) “for the purpose of committing forcible rape therein,” was found guilty as charged by a jury, which assessed punishment at seven years’ imprisonment. The trial court imposed that sentence and Corona appeals, briefing two assignments of error. The first is that the trial court erred in denying Corona’s motion for judgment of acquittal at the close of all the evidence because the evidence “was insufficient as a matter of law to sustain a charge of burglary with intent to commit forcible rape in that the evidence failed to establish any intent to commit the felony of rape, an essential element of the charge.” The second is that the trial court erroneously received evidence of Corona’s prior convictions.

In considering Corona’s first point, we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the State, giving the State the benefit of all reasonable inferences to be drawn therefrom, and we ignore contrary evidence and inferences. State v. Guinan, 665 S.W.2d 325, 327 (Mo. banc 1984). The test is whether the evidence, viewed in that light, is such that a rational trier of fact could have found beyond a reasonable doubt that Corona was guilty. State v. Bonuchi, 636 S.W.2d 338, 340[1] (Mo. banc 1982), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 1211, 103 S.Ct. 1206, 75 L.Ed.2d 446 (1983); Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 322-325, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 2791-92, 61 L.Ed.2d 560, 576-77 (1979).

The record of Corona’s activities on the date in question (Saturday, December 18, 1982) begins at 1:20 a.m., when he was issued a traffic citation by Police Officer Tom Gann at the intersection of Glenstone Avenue and Commercial Street in Springfield. Corona, driving a “blue Mercury” without license plates, was ticketed for “running a flashing red light.”

Gann noticed three things that later became significant: (1) Corona had a “slight odor of intoxicants” about his person that “smelled like beer,” (2) Corona had no injuries on his hands, and (3) the taillights of Corona’s Mercury were undamaged.

After detaining Corona “5 to 7 minutes, something like that,” Gann permitted Corona to drive away in the Mercury.

Less than a half hour later, at 1:53 a.m., Teresa Bartkoski, asleep in her apartment at 2103 South Ingram Mill Road in Springfield, was awakened “by a noise outside.” Ms. Bartkoski, whose apartment, according to the evidence, is between four and five miles from the site where Corona had been stopped by Officer Gann, looked outside and observed a man pick up a hat out of a parked automobile and put the hat on his [933]*933head. He then walked to an apartment complex at 2120 South Ingram Mill, across the street from Ms. Bartkoski’s apartment, and disappeared.

Ms. Bartkoski, who was “kind of alarmed,” noticed that the automobile, a “late model Mercury,” had no license tag.

Complainant, who lived alone in a second floor “studio apartment” in the complex at 2120 South Ingram Mill, was asleep in bed, her outside door secured by a dead bolt and two chains, when she was awakened by a knock at the door, 15 to 20 feet from her bed. As she arose to investigate, the door “was busted open” and a man ran inside toward her. Complainant “just started screaming instantly and started fighting.”

Complainant, clad in a nightgown and “underpants,” was knocked “back across the bed on my back.” At that point, explained complainant, “I was fighting him to keep him off of me, and he grabbed my legs and pulled me down on the floor.” Then, in complainant’s words: “I was slapped around in the head. Knocked around in the head. I couldn’t keep my hands and fists up in front of me and was slugging and screaming at the same time. ... I kept slugging and fighting. And finally, his hand — his hand come down over my face. His hand got in my mouth, and I bit. I bit as hard as I could. At this time, he yelled, screamed, and ran out the door. I don’t know what he screamed. ... It sounded like a male voice....”

Although no lights were on in her apartment, complainant was able, because of an outside light that shone in, to see that the intruder was wearing a “French cap” and a striped sweater. She could not, however, see his facial features or determine whether he was black or white.

After the assailant fled, complainant turned on a light and looked at the door. She saw “that the whole wooden frame area about a foot-and-a-half long where all the locks was on the outside of the door there had been busted off and was just swinging in the air.” This made it impossible for complainant to close the door.

Complainant “was just so panicky” that she dialed the telephone operator, who put the call through to the police. Complainant fixed the time of the call as “a couple of minutes after 2:00.” During the call, complainant looked toward the area where the fight had occurred and saw “a beer bottle in the floor that was never there before.”

Ms. Bartkoski, who had evidently been maintaining surveillance since observing the man at 1:53, saw the same man run toward the Mercury, hat in hand. Upon reaching the Mercury, the man jumped in, throwing the hat in the back. Then, according to Ms. Bartkoski, the man “backed out and proceeded to hit my car,” apparently breaking a taillight on the Mercury. The Mercury sped north on Ingram Mill Road. Ms. Bartkoski immediately reported the incident to police by telephone, fixing the time of her call as “a little after 2:00.”

Police Officer Gary Dishman received a report of the “attempted rape” about 2:05 a.m., and shortly thereafter observed a Mercury, carrying no license plates, traveling north on Glenstone Avenue. As the Mercury matched the description he had been furnished, Dishman pursued it, stopping it at a point which, according to the testimony, was some two miles from complainant’s apartment.

Corona was the driver of the Mercury, and Dishman noticed “what appeared to be a fresh injury” to Corona’s right thumb. Asked why he believed the injury was fresh, Dishman replied, “Well, it had dried blood on it, small amount of dried blood. It hadn’t been, like, cleaned off or anything.”

Dishman also observed that a section of taillight had been broken on the right rear of the Mercury. According to Dishman, “There was some small pieces of the taillight still laying inside the housing of the taillight section where they hadn’t fallen out yet.” Dishman looked inside the Mercury and retrieved a “cap” from the “rear floorboard.”

[934]*934At some point during these duties, Dish-man placed Corona under arrest.

Officer Gann, who had ticketed Corona about an hour earlier, arrived at the arrest scene and noted the broken right taillight on the Mercury. Gann also observed that Corona was wearing the same striped pullover shirt that he had been wearing when Gann issued the traffic citation. On Corona’s right thumb, Gann saw “what appeared to be a fresh laceration” that had not been there at the time of their earlier encounter.

Ms.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
685 S.W.2d 931, 1985 Mo. App. LEXIS 3920, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-corona-moctapp-1985.