State v. Goodseal

553 P.2d 279, 220 Kan. 487, 1976 Kan. LEXIS 496
CourtSupreme Court of Kansas
DecidedJuly 23, 1976
Docket48,072
StatusPublished
Cited by69 cases

This text of 553 P.2d 279 (State v. Goodseal) 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. Goodseal, 553 P.2d 279, 220 Kan. 487, 1976 Kan. LEXIS 496 (kan 1976).

Opinions

The opinion of the court was delivered by

Harman, C.:

This is an appeal from a conviction of first degree murder.

Appellant Charles Goodseal, also known as Charles Jones, was initially charged and tried upon three separate counts arising from the same incident: Unlawful possession of a firearm (K. S. A. 21-4204 [1] [b]), aggravated robbery (K. S. A. 21-3427), and felony murder (K. S. A. 21-3401). The murder count charged that the homicide occurred during the perpetration of the crimes of unlawful possession of a firearm and aggravated robbery. At this first trial appellant was convicted of unlawful possession of a firearm (from which no appeal has been taken), he was acquitted upon the aggravated robbery count and the jury was unable to agree as to the murder charge. Upon a second trial appellant was convicted of murder in the first degree, done in the commission of a felony, [489]*489unlawful possession of a firearm after a felony conviction. Appellant brings the murder conviction here for review.

The evidence revealed the following. In August, 1969, appellant Goodseal was released from the Kansas state industrial reformatory where he had been serving sentences imposed upon two counts of forcible rape. In December, 1973, he left his home in Wichita to seek employment in Denver, Colorado. While there he stayed with a friend, Carl Davis. Davis testified appellant handled a .38 caliber revolver during his Colorado stay and that appellant stated during their return trip to Wichita in appellant’s automobile he, appellant, had a gun in the car trunk. The two arrived in Wichita December 19, 1973. The next day they met a girl called “Silky” whose real name was either Diana Warren or Dianna Coleman. The three spent much of the day together drinking gin. Silky was to commence working that night as a topless dancer in a club in Wichita called the Goldigger’s Lounge. She displayed a .22 caliber pistol which she was carrying in her purse and said she had another gun hidden at the club and that both guns were for her protection. There were generally from seven to ten girls at the club who worked as dancers, some of whom doubled as well as prostitutes.

At the club that evening appellant told his friend Davis that he had a gun but Davis did not see him with one at any time during the afternoon or early evening. Late in the evening appellant intervened in an argument between the club bartender and the girl who was the manager of the dancers, offering to help the latter. At one point he commented, “If you’re having some trouble I got a heater in my back pocket that will straighten it out”.

The victim of the homicide, James Warren Hunter, arrived at the lounge about 10:30 p. m. During the evening he was seen talking to Silky and at one point fondled her breasts. At a time when Hunter paid five dollars to get some of the girls to pose for pictures the bartender noticed other currency in his billfold. Hunter, Davis and appellant remained in the lounge until closing time, which was 12:30 a. m. Outside the lounge appellant told Davis he was waiting to give Silky a ride home and that she was in a car in the parking lot. Davis assumed Silky was “turning a trick”, Appellant and Silky had previously agreed appellant would pretend to be her husband and pull her from the car so that she would not actually have to have sexual relations with the man she was with. Appellant testified that after this agreement Silky handed him a .38 caliber revolver which she said was not loaded.

[490]*490Appellant got out of his car and went to the other automobile in the parking lot. There were no lights on inside but the motor was running. Appellant tapped the back glass with the gun butt, Silky unlocked the door and appellant opened the passenger side door. Hunter and Silky were in the back seat. Silky got out of the car immediately, pulling on her pants and asking appellant to get her shoes. Appellant asked Hunter what he was doing with his “wife” and Hunter replied he had paid her. Hunter then pulled on his pants, turned the pockets partially inside out and said, “Hey, she got my money”. Appellant testified he remembered saying, “No wonder she wanted me to play this little trick so she could steal somebody’s money”. Appellant further testified he then bent over to pick up Silky’s shoes, he slipped in the snow, bumped into the door and the gun discharged. The bullet struck Hunter in the armpit beneath his right shoulder and penetrated the lung area, causing his death. Appellant’s version was that the shooting was accidental and the only reason he took the gun was to scare Hunter with it.

After appellant returned to his car he told his friend Davis he had shot the victim in the chest. Davis had witnessed the shooting. As appellant left the area he took a cartridge out of the gun and threw it away. The next day appellant left for Denver and en route he threw the gun away. Silky vanished immediately after the shooting. In January, 1974, appellant was apprehended in Olathe, Kansas. Further evidence will be narrated in connection with the points at issue.

Appellant’s principal point upon appeal is that the trial court erroneously denied his motions for acquittal and new trial because the offense of felonious possession of a firearm is not inherently dangerous to human life and therefore cannot be the basis for felony murder. K. S. A. 21-3401, under which appellant was convicted, provides:

“Murder in the first degree is the killing of a human being committed maliciously, willfully, deliberately and with premeditation or committed in the perpetration or attempt to perpetrate any felony. . . .” (Emphasis supplied. )

Possession of a firearm with a barrel less than twelve inches long by a person who within five years has been released from imprisonment for a felony, is one form of unlawful possession of a firearm and is a class D felony (K. S. A. 21-4204 [1] [b] [2]).

Here there is no question that appellant within five years after [491]*491his release from confinement for a felony had in his hand a firearm with a barrel less than twelve inches long at a time when a bullet from that weapon caused Hunter s death. Appellant’s argument is this. He says that to sustain a conviction for felony murder the collateral felony must be one inherently dangerous to human life; that this court recognized and applied this rule in State v. Moffitt, 199 Kan. 514, 431 P. 2d 879, and held that unlawful possession of a firearm by an ex-felon is inherently dangerous to human life as a matter of law, further that in reaching this conclusion in Moffitt we cited a line of California decisions holding that unlawful possession of a firearm constitutes a felony inherently dangerous to human life and, where causal connection is shown, a resulting homicide constitutes felony murder in the second degree under California law; that in 1971 the California supreme court receded from this position and in People v. Satchell, 6 Cal. 3d 28, 98 Cal. Reptr. 33, 489 P. 2d 1361, 50 ALR 3d 383, ruled that the unlawful possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, viewed in the abstract, is not a felony inherently dangerous to human life for purposes of the felony murder rule, and this court should similarly reverse its decision in Moffitt and so hold.

Appellee first responds that our present statute does not require that a felony be one inherently dangerous to human life in order to support a felony murder conviction. We cannot agree. At the time Moffitt

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
553 P.2d 279, 220 Kan. 487, 1976 Kan. LEXIS 496, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-goodseal-kan-1976.