State v. Gomillia

529 S.W.2d 892, 1975 Mo. App. LEXIS 2155
Missouri Court of Appeals·Decided September 30, 1975·No. 35343·Published·Cited by 14 cases

Opinion

KELLY, Judge.

The appellant, hereinafter the defendant, was convicted in the Circuit Court of St. Louis County, Missouri, of Robbery in the First Degree by Means of a Dangerous and Deadly Weapon (§ 560.120 RSMo 1969) on Count I of an Amended Information and on Count II of Assault with Intent to Kill with Malice Aforethought (§ 559.180 RSMo 1969). Having been found by the trial court after an evidentiary hearing to be a Second Offender within the terms of § 556.-280 RSMo 1969, the trial court, rather than the jury, sentenced the defendant to a term of life imprisonment in the custody of the Missouri Department of Corrections on the Robbery charge and to a term of twenty (20) years in the custody of the Department of Corrections on the Assault charge, concurrently. 1 This appeal followed.

Defendant does not challenge the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain a convic *894 tion on either Count of the Amended Information, but rather contends that the trial court erred in (1) admitting the in-court identification of witnesses John Ellinger, Jr., and Myra Lloyd and (2) admitting into evidence “mug shots” of the defendant and others and permitting them to be passed to the jurors for their inspection.

The facts as found by the jury are that at about 8:15 a. m. on the morning of November 6,1972, John Ellinger, Jr., was seated in the office of a service station located at 8308 Airport Road in St. Louis County, Missouri, when two black men entered. One of the black men walked towards the service bay and the other, the taller of the two, who was identified at trial as the defendant, approached Mr. Ellinger who was, at the time, talking on the telephone. As he approached Mr. Ellinger the defendant put on a pair of gloves and when approximately three feet from Mr. Ellinger drew a gun and directed Mr. Ellinger to “keep it up.” The defendant then walked behind Mr. El-linger and removed at least $400.00 from the desk top. Mr. Ellinger was then directed to open the cash register and when he did the defendant removed the contents. Mr. Ellinger and David Boll, a fellow employee, were instructed to lie down on the storeroom floor and after they did as ordered, the storeroom doors were closed and Mr. Ellinger heard the front door open and close. Mr. Ellinger then started to pick up the phone from the floor when he heard a noise and looked up to see the defendant returning. The defendant pointed a gun to Mr. Ellinger’s head and threatened to kill him. Mr. Ellinger grabbed at the gun and during the following struggle the gun discharged striking Mr. Ellinger in the abdomen. The defendant then made his escape from the premises. At the scene Mr. El-linger described the defendant as being six (6) feet tall, stocky build and weighing 200 pounds. He said the defendant was wearing a hip length dark tan leather coat, dark trousers and a broad brimmed hat.

On Tuesday, November 7, 1972, two officers of the Berkeley Police Department showed Mr. Ellinger some “mug shots,” eight in number, and from these he selected the photo of the defendant as the man who robbed and shot him. All eight of the “mug shots” were offered and admitted into evidence during the course of the trial and then passed to the jurors for their examination. These eight “mug shots” plus three more were also shown to Myra Lloyd, a State’s witness, at approximately 3:30 p. m. on November 6, 1972, and out of the group she selected defendant’s photo as that of the robber she saw at the scene of the occurrence. The following morning Mrs. Lloyd went to the Berkeley police station at about 10:45 a. m. Mr. Boll was also there. She was shown a lineup of five black men in a well-lighted room in which there was a two-way glass. Two of the men had beards and two had Afro hair-dos. After viewing the lineup she was fairly certain that the center man was the person she had seen at the scene of the hold-up but she asked them to bring the men back in again, viewed the lineup a second time and then was certain that it was the center man she saw at the robbery scene. The “center man” in the lineup was this defendant. The “mug shot” of the defendant was shown to Mrs. Lloyd on February 14, 1973, just prior to her taking the stand and offering her testimony in the trial.

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State v. Gomillia, 529 S.W.2d 892, 1975 Mo. App. LEXIS 2155 (Mo. Ct. App. 1975).

529 S.W.2d 892 (State v. Gomillia) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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