State v. Rocha

526 S.W.2d 834, 1975 Mo. App. LEXIS 2068
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedJune 3, 1975
DocketNo. 36051
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 526 S.W.2d 834 (State v. Rocha) 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. Rocha, 526 S.W.2d 834, 1975 Mo. App. LEXIS 2068 (Mo. Ct. App. 1975).

Opinion

WEIER, Presiding Judge.

Defendant Mary Lou Rocha was convicted of first degree murder (§ 559.010, RSMo 1969, V.A.M.S.) for the murder of her husband and sentenced to life imprisonment. Defendant has appealed her conviction.

Evidence revealed the following: On the morning of May 23, 1973 Juan Rocha, defendant’s husband, was found dead on the front porch of his home in the City of St. Louis. A pool of dried blood was found beneath the body. An autopsy revealed that death was caused by a shotgun wound to the lung and pulmonary artery. No. 6 shot were removed from the body.

The defendant was questioned by police within a week of her husband’s death. At police headquarters defendant made a video-tape statement which was introduced as evidence at trial. This statement revealed that defendant had wanted her husband [836]*836killed for some time. Family quarrels, difficulties, and mistreatment constituted the main reasons for this wish. Some six months before the murder, defendant approached her son-in-law, George Waller, and asked him to kill her husband. Waller refused because he did not want his family to find out that he had murdered his father-in-law. But defendant persisted in these requests and Waller then told defendant that although he would not kill her husband, he knew someone who would.

Defendant met this person, Willie Earl Little, at Waller’s home on May 19, 1978. Little agreed at this time to kill Juan Rocha for $250.00 or $300.00 She told him she could not pay him all at once because she did not have that kind of money. But she did want him killed and left the manner in which he was to be killed up to Little.

Later that same day defendant met Waller and Little. Defendant was told by Little it would cost her $45.00 to obtain the “thing” that he needed to kill Rocha. She paid him the $45.00 within an hour thereafter.

Defendant, her daughter, Waller and Little attended a carnival on May 22, the night before Rocha’s body was discovered. Defendant came home at about 11:00 p. m. after the carnival. She then received a call from Little a short while later in which he told her “ ‘It will happen * * * shortly’ ”. Defendant then went to bed. The next morning about 6:30 a. m. she discovered her husband’s body on the front porch. He had been shot with a shotgun in the chest.

Defendant raises a number of issues on appeal. Since several of these question the sufficiency of the evidence, we will consider them together. Defendant argues that the trial court erred by failing to sustain her motions for judgment of acquittal made at the close of the state’s case and at the close of all the evidence because the state failed to make a submissible case. Defendant further urges that the trial court erred by submitting two instructions to the jury because the evidence failed to support their submission.

In order to determine whether a submissible case was made, we consider the evidence in the light most favorable to the state. All inferences reasonably to be drawn from the evidence must be considered in this same light, and any inferences to the contrary must be disregarded. State v. Stubenrauch, 503 S.W.2d 136, 138[6] (Mo.App.1973). Defendant specifically argues that insufficient circumstantial evidence was adduced to make a submissi-ble case against her and to support her conviction. Where the state relies on circumstantial evidence alone, the law is well-settled that the circumstances, to warrant a conviction, must be consistent with each other, must tend to prove guilt, and not only must be consistent with the hypothesis of defendant’s guilt but must be inconsistent with every other reasonable hypothesis, including that of innocence. State v. Irby, 423 S.W.2d 800, 802[2] (Mo.1968). But this rule is applicable only where the evidence of defendant’s agency in connection with the crime is entirely circumstantial. State v. McClure, 504 S.W.2d 664, 667[1] (Mo.App.1974). Admissions by the accused are direct evidence of his guilt. State v. Stevens, 467 S.W.2d 10, 25[24] (Mo.1971); State v. Little, 501 S.W.2d 562, 563[4] (Mo.App.1973). By reason of defendant’s video-taped admissions, this is not a case based upon circumstantial evidence alone.

In order to sustain her contention that the state failed to make a submissible case, defendant enumerates many facts which the state failed to prove. Among these, defendant argues that no evidence was presented to show that Juan Rocha was alive at any time on May 23, 1973, that no evidence showed the time of his death, or the place of the assault on him. Further, defendant urges that there was no showing that George Waller or Willie Little or defendant ever purchased a shotgun or other weapon, or that any of them assaulted Juan Rocha, as charged in the indictment.

[837]*837We agree with defendant that direct evidence on these facts was not introduced at trial. However, we must determine on this appeal whether the evidence which was presented and the logical inferences therefrom were sufficient to make a case for the jury. The particular facts and circumstances of each individual case must be considered when the sufficiency of the evidence is challenged. Here, defendant wanted her husband dead. She asked George Waller to kill him. She hired Willie Little to do so. She paid $45.00 to be used to purchase an instrumentality or weapon. Willie Little told defendant on the night of May 22, 1973 that it would happen shortly. The following morning Juan Rocha was found dead from a shotgun wound. In substance, defendant, wishing her husband’s death, put into operation a scheme to achieve this end, and Juan Rocha was found murdered shortly after defendant’s plan was conceived and the chain of events initiated.

We find on this record sufficient direct and circumstantial evidence to make a submissible case. An inference could be drawn by the jury that defendant’s husband was killed according to plan. The facts introduced thus produce an unbroken chain of direct and circumstantial evidence. Although no evidence was introduced as to the time of Rocha’s death, the jury properly could infer that Rocha was killed sometime before 6:30 a. m. on May 23, 1973, since he was found dead in a pool of blood at that time, and Little had called defendant sometime after 11:00 p. m. the night of May 22. While there was no direct evidence as to who carried out the assault on Rocha, a jury could likewise infer that Little carried out his promise to kill Rocha after making the phone call to defendant. For an analogous case in which a murder scheme was conceived, was intended to be implemented in a certain manner, and in which the intended victim died according to plan, but in which there was no evidence that the fatal poison had actually been administered by a co-conspirator, see State v. Deyo, 358 S.W.2d 816 (Mo.1962). In a case like this before us, the evidence presented does not have to exclude every possible hypothesis other than guilt. A trial judge does not have to- sustain a motion for judgment of acquittal whenever in his opinion the evidence has not ruled out all hypotheses but guilt; such court action would invade the province of the jury.

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Bluebook (online)
526 S.W.2d 834, 1975 Mo. App. LEXIS 2068, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-rocha-moctapp-1975.