State v. Jones

545 S.W.2d 659, 1976 Mo. App. LEXIS 2714
Missouri Court of Appeals·Decided December 7, 1976·No. 36112·Published·Cited by 17 cases

Opinion

ALDEN A. STOCKARD, Special Judge.

Appellant, Louis Jones, was convicted by a jury of assault with intent to kill with malice aforethought, and of robbery in the first degree by means of a dangerous and deadly weapon. The jury was unable to agree on the punishment and the trial court imposed a sentence of life imprisonment for each offense, the sentences to be served consecutively.

Appellant does not challenge the sufficiency of the evidence. We shall, therefore, summarize the facts which reasonably could be found by a jury.

A little after 1:00 o’clock in the morning of March 18, 1972, several young black persons, including appellant, armed with various weapons, entered a tavern named Cousin Hugo’s in Maplewood, Missouri, and robbed the patrons, estimated to have been between 75 and 100 persons. During the course of the robbery a patron was shot, a barmaid, Sandra Clemens, was stabbed, and two patrons were killed, one by a stab wound and the other, an off-duty police officer, by being shot in the head from close range with a shotgun while he lay face down on the floor.

Shortly after the incident at Cousin Hugo’s the police learned that Lucious To-ney and appellant had been seen in the neighborhood, and Sergeant Boulch and two officers went to a house on Dumas *661 Street where they found Lucious Toney’s mother. When she saw the police officers she became very excited and ran down the street shouting, “Lucious, Lucious, police.” She stopped at a house located around the corner at 1338 Banneker Street. There the police officers spoke to Lucious Toney who gave them permission to enter. Inside the house the police found three other black persons, including appellant, various weapons, and numerous items such as billfolds, credit cards, driver licenses and purses, all of which belonged to the victims of the robbery at Cousin Hugo’s.

Appellant’s first point is that the trial court erred in admitting into evidence the in-court identifications of appellant by Sandra Clemens and Joyce Sullivan, and also the testimony by these two persons “of extra-judicial identifications” of appellant.

Sandra Clemens was employed at Cousin Hugo’s. She testified at the trial that five black men entered the tavern, one of whom was appellant, and that after he stabbed a dog that was in the bar, he leaped over the counter and forced her to place money from the cash register into a bag that he had and then stabbed her in the abdomen. She made a positive in-court identification of appellant as that person. She did not view a lineup. After she was released from the hospital she was shown photographs and “the photograph of [appellant] looked familiar,” but she was not able to “specifically identify him from the picture.” On cross-examination appellant brought out for the first time that she was shown a “video tape” and pictures of two lineups. She did not testify that she identified appellant in the video tape showing or in the pictures.

Joyce Sullivan was a patron at Cousin Hugo's, and she testified that she saw two black men enter the front door who were immediately followed by three more black men. She positively identified appellant at the trial as the second person to enter. She also testified that she attended a lineup a few days later and that she there identified appellant as one of the persons she had seen at Cousin Hugo's.

Prior to trial appellant filed a motion to suppress testimony of identification, and after a hearing the court held that the lineups were fair, untainted and not suggestive; that the photographs of the lineups were fair and not suggestive; that there was no evidence of any taint or suggestiveness by prosecuting officials or police, and that the identification testimony of the witnesses was proper and that it had an independent source. The trial court however noted that “witness Sandra Clemmons * * * never viewed any corporeal lineups; that Clemmons was stabbed and went to the hospital; that she has never viewed [appellant] since the incident herein and may never be able to make an in-court identification; * * .” The court then directed that Sandra Clemens “cannot make an in-court identification until at trial the Court conducts a further * * * hearing to determine whether [her] in-court identification is based upon a photograph of [appellant] or an independent source from [her] knowledge of what [she] saw in Cousin Hugo’s.” It was further directed that the prosecuting attorney and the police “not * * * show any photographs of [appellant] * * until the hearing” was held. A further hearing was held on October 2, 1973. Sandra Clemens then observed appellant in person for the first time after the incident at Cousin Hugo’s, and she positively identified him as the person who stabbed her. She testified that she based her identification on her observation of him at the time of the incident at Cousin Hugo’s, and her observation of his eyes and skintone. The trial court ruled that Sandra Clemens could testify to an in-court identification, thereby holding that there was an independent basis for the in-court identification.

Appellant presents a 92-page argument and cites 85 cases in his brief in support of his first point. Much of that argument appears to be directed to the issue of whether the testimony concerning identification should be believed, an issue for the jury, rather than to the legal issue of whether the testimony concerning identification was admissible.

*662 In substance, appellant’s contention is that the pretrial identification procedures were so impermissibly suggestive as to give rise to a substantial likelihood of irreparable misidentification and thereby tainted the in-court identifications. In Simmons v. United States, 390 U.S. 377, 88 S.Ct. 967,19 L.Ed.2d 1247 (1968), it was held that such a contention “must be evaluated in light of the totality of surrounding circumstances.” When so viewed, the determination of whether pretrial identification was “imper-missibly suggestive” is governed by three principles: (1) the presence of an independent basis of identification; (2) the absence of any suggestive influence by others; and (3) positive in-court identification. State v. Jones, 531 S.W.2d 67, 70 (Mo.App.1975).

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State v. Jones, 545 S.W.2d 659, 1976 Mo. App. LEXIS 2714 (Mo. Ct. App. 1976).

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