State v. Rush

286 S.W.2d 767, 1956 Mo. LEXIS 604
CourtSupreme Court of Missouri
DecidedFebruary 13, 1956
Docket44814
StatusPublished
Cited by17 cases

This text of 286 S.W.2d 767 (State v. Rush) 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. Rush, 286 S.W.2d 767, 1956 Mo. LEXIS 604 (Mo. 1956).

Opinion

DALTON, Presiding Judge.

By an amended information filed in the Circuit Court of the City of St. Louis, defendant was charged with burglary in the second degree and larceny under the Habitual Criminal Act with six prior felony convictions. Sections 560.070 and 556.280 RSMo 1949, V.A.M.S. He was acquitted of larceny, but convicted of burglary, second degree, as charged, and his punishment assessed at ten years imprisonment in the State Penitentiary. Section 560.095 RSMo 1949, V.A.M.S. He has appealed, but has filed no brief and we shall examine the assignments contained in his motion for a new trial. Supreme Court Rule 28.02, 42 V.A.M.S.

The State’s evidence tended to show that on April 8, 1953, one Harold Firestone owned and operated a grocery store known as Firestone’s Market, located at the northeast corner of the intersection of Goodfel-low and Etzel in the City of St. Louis. About 6:45 p. m. Mr. Firestone personally placed some $325 in the outer portion of the store safe and locked the safe. A side door of the store opening on Goodfellow was padlocked on the inside and the main front door was locked with a Yale lock. All doors and windows were closed and locked when he left the store.

About 11:00 p. m. a police officer walking his beat and going north on the east side of Goodfellow saw a man who had been standing on the west side of Goodfellow north of Etzel, opposite the Firestone store, move across the street to the side door and, a9 the officer approached and called out “Police Officer,” a man carrying a small box ran out of the store and ran north on Goodfellow, while the man who had just crossed the street ran back west across Goodfellow. The officer saw this man (appellant here) from a distance of 35 feet and sufficiently close to identify him, but the officer pursued the man with the box north on Goodfellow. One shot was fired in the air and one at the man, but ultimately the officer lost him and returned to the Firestone store, where he found appellant in the custody of another police officer from another district. This second officer resided on the south side of Etzel about 125 feet east of the Firestone store. He had just returned home, around 11:00 p. m. and gotten out of his automobile when he heard two shots fired. He stopped on the sidewalk and, within 30 seconds to a minute or two, he saw a man (later identified as appellant) run into a driveway beside .a house across the street and down this driveway south between two houses and come running out of the driveway into Etzel. The officer hollered to him and exhibited a police badge and gun and asked him to identify himself and where he was “coming from” and what he was doing there. Appellant stopped and gave his name and exhibited his driver’s license, which showed that his residence was in another section of the city, “all the way down on Madison.” He didn’t give any reason for being in that neighborhood and the officer told him he was under arrest. The officer took appellant to the intersection of Goodfellow and Etzel where he learned of the Firestone store burglary. There the first officer, who had discovered the burglary, identified appellant as the person whom he had seen cross Goodfellow to the side door of the Firestone store and then' run west when the officer shouted “Police Officer” and started in pursuit of the man who came out of the store and ran north.

When appellant was first stopped on Etzel, the officer thought he saw appellant throw something away, but subsequently, after diligent search in the vicinity of the driveway, nothing was found. The owner *770 of the store and certain .officers inspected, the store premises after the arrest of appellant and found a large window pane broken out of a window on the east side of the store, 8 feet up from the ground, and there were vertical marks 6 to 18 inches long on the outside of the brick wall below the window. The window had been “knocked out” after the store had been locked up.' The combinations were knocked off the outer and inner portions of the store safe. The outer part of the safe was open and $325 was missing. Two padlocks on the inside of the side door of -the'Store opening on Goodfellow had been knocked off and the door was' open. The officers found a large hammer,' a chisel and a long steel punch near the safe and open door. Some $5 in scattered change and a black metal tray, later identified, was found in an alley north and east of the store. Appellant was taken to District 12 Headquarters where he was questioned. He said that he and another person had “planned this Job .in a northside tavern” and' that the other party had carried the hammer and punch to the store. Appellant said he was the “lookout” and stood across Goodfellow from the side door. He had crossed the street to notify the person in the store, when he saw the' officer approaching from the south. He said he ran west when his accomplice ran north, but immediately, thereafter he “backtracked” east and south, where he was apprehended by the second officer. He said he had parked his- Chevrolet automobile two blocks north on Goodfellow before the burglary, but it was not located by the officers. Appellant gave the name of his partner and accomplice as Joe Rizzo, however this proved to be an alias used by appellant himself. Appellant refused to. give the true name of his accomplice. The following day appellant “clammed up” and denied any participation in the burglary and said the officers would have tó prove it. The state’s evidence further tended to show six prior felony convictions and discharges from' sentences 'imposed thereunder.

Appellant’s evidence tended to show that,on the evening in question, he was planning to meet a person with whom he had no appointment at the “Blue Room” in St. Louis, but the place wasn’t where he thought it was and he had walked back north on Goodfellow to Etzel and then turned east in -an effort to try to locate the place. He was walking east in an ordinary manner on the north side of Etzel when he was arrested. Appellant explained the circumstances of his arrest, as follows: He heard two shots and turned around, as the shots appeared to come from the corner of Etzel and. Goodfellow. At that time a plain clothes officer crossed the street and asked his name and where he was going. He told the officer “To the Blue Room,” which he had been told was at -Clara and Etzel. He showed the officer his chauffeur’s license, with name and address, which address he admitted was not in that vicinity. The -officer asked him if he had ever been in trouble and he told the officer “he had done time.” About that time a lady appeared and reported the burglary of the Firestone store. The officer then said that appellant’s story, about going to the “Blue Room,” “sounded fishy” and placed him under arrest. While appellant testified that certain police officers “beat him up,” after his arrest and ■ prior to the time he was “booked” at headquarters, he denied that he had ever made a statement to any one to the effect that he "was implicated in that burglary at all.” He “never admitted this burglary.” In accounting for the name Joe Rizzo, appellant testified: “He said I ought to know the name of the man I was with. I said, there was nobody with me. So finally I said if all you want is a name, Joe Rizzo is a name.” Appellant later testified that the name Joe Rizzo was an alias he had used. Appellant admitted the six prior ■ felony convictions and discharges from the sentences imposed as shown by the', state and testified concerning a further felony conviction, grand larceny, not alleged or previously proven.

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Bluebook (online)
286 S.W.2d 767, 1956 Mo. LEXIS 604, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-rush-mo-1956.