State v. Humphrey

210 S.W.2d 1002, 357 Mo. 824, 1948 Mo. LEXIS 689
CourtSupreme Court of Missouri
DecidedMay 10, 1948
DocketNo. 40741.
StatusPublished
Cited by24 cases

This text of 210 S.W.2d 1002 (State v. Humphrey) 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. Humphrey, 210 S.W.2d 1002, 357 Mo. 824, 1948 Mo. LEXIS 689 (Mo. 1948).

Opinion

HYDE, J.

[1003] Defendant was convicted of burglary (second degree) and larceny and sentenced to ten years imprisonment. He has appealed..

The only question raised in defendant’s brief is the admissibility .of a confession signed by defendant, which was written by Kansas City Police officers. This confession recited several separate burglaries and defendant was charged by separate informations on two of them. He was acquitted in the first case tried. Since the confession *826 reciting both of these burglaries was introduced as evidence in that ease, it is .contended that the issues of whether defendant read and understood it and whether it was freely and voluntarily made without threats or promises were res judicata.

Defendant filed a motion to suppress evidence on that ground, which was overruled. It was alleged in this motion “that the validity of said instrument purporting to contain a confession of guilt in that cause was attacked by defendant (in the other case) on the ground that defendant did not possess sufficient education to read and understand. the things and confessions therein purported to be contained; that the only crime under discussion with the police officers who obtained his signature on said instrument containing said purported confession of guilt was in respect to a police court case then pending in the Municipal Court of Kansas City, Missouri, and that a promise was made to defendant by the police officers who obtained his signature on said instrument that they would see to it that his sentence did not exceed a term of sixty days‘in the Municipal Farm of Kansas City, Missouri, and that his signature on said instrument was obtained by Officer Kogers as a result of said promise; that evidence was introduced by defendant in respect to the aforestated issues, and that by reason of the verdict and judgment of ‘not guilty’ rendered by the jury in said cause, said instrument containing said purported confessions was adjudged to be illegal and invalid.”

Defendant did give such testimony, as to his misunderstanding of the instrument he signed, at a preliminary hearing on his motion and before the jury in this case. He said that the only matter discussed when he signed the confession was a petit larceny case in. police court in which he had been released on a cash bond; that the officers told him to plead guilty and he would get sixty days and get his bond money back; and that he signed the paper they presented to him for this purpose without knowing what was stated in it. He said that he could not read or write but could only sign his name. He said that he did not tell them that he had broken into the Kansas City Printing Ink Company or the Guni'te Construction Company, the two charges upon which he was tried, and which were both admitted in the confession..

However, the police officers testified during the trial of this case that defendant pointed out to them the Gunite Construction Company as a place he had broken into and told them what he had taken there. They also said defendant gave them information concerning his disposition of articles taken from this place and went with them to find a man to whom he had sold a shotgun, taken by him from the construction company office, and from whom they recovered it. This gun was identified by the president of the construction company and was produced at the trial. ' Thus there was ample evidence to support his conviction without the written confession. According *827 to the officers’ testimony, defendant voluntarily related to. them all of the statements in the confession, after riding with them through the district and pointing out the places involved. One of the officers said he wrote defendant’s statement longhand and went back over it with him as he wrote it down; that this was copied on the typewriter by one of the police clerks and handed to defendant to see before he signed it.; that no promises of any kind were made to him; and that he was not mistreated in any manner.

“The doctrine of res judicata by which a.fact or manner distinctly put in issue and directly determined by a court of competent jurisdiction cannot afterwards be disputed between. the same parties, is applicable [1004] to judgments in criminal prosecutions. . . . The doctrine of res judicata, as applied to criminal cases, is subject to the same limitations as apply in civil cases. And clearly, there must be an adjudication of the fact or issue in question. A judgment in a criminal case operates as res judicata only with respect to the issues of law and fact actually decided and those necessarily involved in the result.” [15 Am. Jur. 45, Sec. 367 (Cumulative Supplement, p. 7); see Annotation 147 A. L. R. 992; 50 C. J. S. 267, Sec. 754; 2 Van Fleet on Former Adjudication 1242-1249, Sec. 628; Sealfon v. United States, 68 S. Ct. 237, 92 L. Ed. 215; Harris v. State (Ga.), 17 S.. E. (2d) 573, 147 A. L. R. 980, 991; see also Dusenberg v. Randolph, 325 Mo. 881, 30 S. W. (2d ) 94; Norwood v. Norwood, 353 Mo. 548, 183 S. W. (2d) 118; Kimpton v. Spellman, 351, Mo. 674, 173 S. W. (2d) 886; Laughlin v. Boatmen’s National Bank, 354 Mo. 467, 189 S. W. (2d) 974.] It was held in State v. Barton (Wash.), 105 Pac. (2d) 63, that the issue of alibi, raised as a defense in a previous prosecution, was not res judicata. The court said: “It is not possible to determine whether the jurors returned a verdict of acquittal because they credited the testimony in support of appellant’s alibi, or for the reason that they found the state’s.evidence insufficient as to one or more essential elements of the offense charged. They could have utterly disregarded all of the testimony. adduced by the appellant in his .defense and yet have returned a verdict of not guilty. The verdict and the judgment based thereon were not, therefore, res judicata as to appellant’s alibi, nor as to any other particular fact. They were res judicata only as to the ultimate fact that appellant was not guilty of the crime of which he. was accused.” Likewise, “acquittal of one charged with crime is no bar to a prosecution for perjury for testimony given by him at the trial. ’ ’ [15 Am. Jur. 45, Sec. 368.]

This is not a case of defendant being tried for another offense growing out of the same transaction or occurrence, as was true in the Sealfon and. Harris cases, supra. As said in the Sealfon case, the question of res judicata “depends upon the facts adduced at each .trial and the instructions under which the jury arrived at its verdict *828 at the first trial.” We do not think that it was shown in this case that there was an adjudication of the issue of the voluntariness of defendant’s confession at the trial of the other burglary charge or that it was necessarily involved in the result. The instructions in the other case were not offered in evidence herein, but it was admitted at the oral argument that there was no instruction submitting such issue to the. jury in that case (and there was none in this case); and there was no showing as to what other defenses were made in that case or whether or not the state had other evidence corroborating the facts Stated in the confession as to the offense in that case as it did in this case. [See 20 Am. Jur. 1185, Sec’s. 1233-1234; 22 C. J. S. 1471, Sec. 839.] Furthermore, the jury in the other' ease could have believed that the confession, although voluntary, was imt true as to all of the facts stated concerning that case.

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Bluebook (online)
210 S.W.2d 1002, 357 Mo. 824, 1948 Mo. LEXIS 689, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-humphrey-mo-1948.