State v. Reynolds

560 S.W.2d 313, 1977 Mo. App. LEXIS 2759
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedDecember 13, 1977
DocketNo. 38296
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 560 S.W.2d 313 (State v. Reynolds) 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. Reynolds, 560 S.W.2d 313, 1977 Mo. App. LEXIS 2759 (Mo. Ct. App. 1977).

Opinion

NORWIN D. HOUSER,

Special Judge.

Brad Ellis Reynolds, found guilty of second degree burglary and stealing and sentenced to concurrent 2-year terms on each charge, has appealed. He contends (1) there was insufficient evidence upon which to base a conviction and (2) the trial court erroneously admitted in evidence acts and declarations of an alleged coconspirator implicating this appellant, without proof of a [314]*314conspiracy; that the coconspirator’s alleged acts and statements were not made under oath, were not subject to cross-examination, and were made outside appellant’s presence, all in contravention of the hearsay rule and appellant’s constitutional right of confrontation.

(1) On the sufficiency of the evidence

Between 9:30 and 10 p. m. on April 17 Paul Angel discovered that a burglary had occurred at his barn located off Highway 19 two and a half miles south of Wellsville. Missing from the locked inner room inside the barn, which had been broken open, were two acetylene gas welding tanks and cart, a welder’s mask, a gas welder, a tip of a torch, a tool chest, toolbox, a drawer of miscellaneous tools, a wheel and a motorcycle shield. A pickup truck, license number 7J3818, was parked in front of Angel’s property. Angel drove to Wellsville, located sheriff deputies Covington and Whyte and reported the burglary. The officers accompanied Angel to the scene. The pickup truck was no longer parked in front of Angel’s house when he and the officers returned. Search of the premises disclosed the missing tool chest, which had been removed from the barn, lifted over a fence between the barn and road, and abandoned near the fence. Angel could not lift the tool chest by his own efforts because it was too heavy. He and his grandson carried it back into the barn. A neighbor, driving past a point on the road one and a half miles west of Angel’s farm at 6:10 on the morning of April 18, saw the welding tanks, cart and some of the missing tools lying in the ditch on the right side of the road. He picked up these items, put them in his pickup truck, informed Angel, and later turned them over to the sheriff’s office. He had not observed these items as he passed there at 4:30 on the afternoon of April 17. At about 11:20 p. m. on April 17 Deputy Cov-ington found the pickup truck, license number 7J3818, wrecked, standing in a fence row four and a half miles south of Montgomery City, headed toward that city on the road which led into the city on Pickering Street. The officers found Angel’s toolbox, lying in a fence row at the scene of the wreck, ten to fifteen yards from the pickup. Deputy Sheriff Creech, notified that evening that the pickup truck had been located, started from Montgomery City traveling north toward the scene of the wreck. He drove to Route 161, turned north on Pickering Street, and there at about 11:30 p. m. he encountered appellant and Mike Rohmann, walking fast or trotting, proceeding south on Pickering. Interrogated, they said they had “lost” a truck and were searching for it. Deputy Creech picked them up and took them to the scene of the wreck. Appellant had a cut on his face, a small cut across the nose, a cut finger, and there was blood on his glasses and little patches of blood on his clothing. Appellant told Deputy Creech his face was bloody because he had a nosebleed. Rohmann was limping on one foot, and had cuts on the legs of his britches. At the sheriff’s office on the morning of April 18, after having been given Miranda warnings, appellant told Deputy Covington that he had been with Rohmann the entire night of April 17, from 9:00 o’clock on. On that morning Deputy Creech had a discussion with Rohmann in which Rohmann related that he and appellant had been together all evening on April 17 between 9:00 o’clock p. m. and the time he and appellant were picked up by Deputy Creech. The officer told Rohmann he was interested in getting the property back and would like it if Roh-mann would show Creech “where it was so that [they] could return the property” the owner had lost. After that conversation Deputy Creech and Rohmann drove first to the place of the accident, then to the scene of the burglary. Starting from the latter place, Deputy Creech and Rohmann drove over a route through various country roads described at the trial by the deputy. Finally Rohmann directed Creech to stop, saying “I think this is the place.” He directed the officer to “back up.” They stopped, got out of the police car, and there Rohmann found a wheel, a chisel and a tip of a torch (items missing from Angel’s barn).

Mike Rohmann did not testify.

[315]*315Appellant testified as follows: He and Rohmann were operating a borrowed pickup truck in Montgomery City about 9 p. m. on April 17. Appellant suggested to Roh-mann, who was driving, that they go to Wellsville to check on some parts for his car. On the way and about 9:15 p. m., when they were still close to Wellsville, the truck “quit” because of electrical trouble. They walked to Wellsville to a filling station for help, passing the station at 10 o’clock p. m. Finding no one to help them, they walked back, intending to fix the truck themselves. The pickup truck was gone when they returned. They decided to walk the gravel roads in an effort to find the pickup truck. They did walk “quite a ways,” finally reaching Montgomery City, where they saw Deputy Creech, who hailed them. They reporting missing a pickup truck. The officer said he had a call on a truck and invited them to go with him to see if it was their truck.

At trial appellant denied he had been in the pickup truck at the time it was wrecked. He said the cuts on his face, etc. were caused that afternoon when a jack handle flew off and hit him in the face; that his scratched knuckles resulted from “pulling the car (at Mr. and Mrs. Boyer’s place) out there and trying to get the air in the tires and stuff like that.” He accounted for Rohmann’s limp by claiming Roh-mann sprained his ankle in a physical education class at high school. He denied participation in the burglary. He admitted that three weeks before the burglary he and Rohmann had been at the Angel farm “to see about a pickup truck.” On that occasion he saw other motor vehicles there. Appellant’s father operates a body shop. Appellant does body work; works on automobiles. He testified that cutting torches and tools are used in body work.

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Related

State v. Campbell
122 S.W.3d 736 (Missouri Court of Appeals, 2004)

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Bluebook (online)
560 S.W.2d 313, 1977 Mo. App. LEXIS 2759, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-reynolds-moctapp-1977.