State v. Williams

978 S.W.2d 454, 1998 Mo. App. LEXIS 1695, 1998 WL 664826
Missouri Court of Appeals·Decided September 29, 1998·No. 73347·Published·Cited by 9 cases

Opinion

SIMON, Presiding Judge.

Belinda Williams (defendant) appeals the judgment entered on her conviction by a jury of two counts of forgery pursuant to section 570.090 RSMo 1994 (all further references shall be to RSMo 1994 unless otherwise noted), for which she was sentenced as a prior and persistent offender to two concurrent terms of seven years’ imprisonment, with credit granted for time while on bond. State of Missouri (State) appeals the granting of the time credit.

Defendant filed a motion to dismiss State’s appeal, arguing that State has no right to appeal in this ease. The motion was ordered taken with the ease. We deny the motion.

On appeal, defendant contends that the trial court “erred and plainly erred” in overruling her motion to suppress evidence and admitting into evidence items seized from her by police because those items were the fruit of an unlawful search and seizure. State contends that the trial court erred in granting defendant credit for time while on bond because credit can be granted only for time spent in confinement and because jurisdiction to determine jail time credit is vested in the Department of Corrections and not the sentencing court. We affirm in part and reverse and remand in part with directions.

The record, viewed in a light most favorable to the trial court’s ruling on the motion to suppress, reveals that on October 3, 1996, Susan Blaylock, a white woman, went to Northwest Plaza in St. Louis County, Missouri, to do Christmas shopping. At some time between 10:00 and 11:30 a.m., she entered Lady Foot Locker, met store manager Dervon Nash, with whom she interacted for approximately forty minutes, and bought some shoes using her First Community Credit Union Visa Card. She used that card because her other cards “were at their limit.” At approximately noon she went to the restroom at J.C. Penney, where someone took her maroon, oblong wallet from her purse. She went to the security department to report her missing wallet and gave a description of it to the police. She had not given anyone permission to use any of her credit cards in her purse or to sign her name.

Later that afternoon, a black woman entered the Lady Foot Locker, met Nash, requested several different types of merchandise of various sizes, and attempted to purchase the merchandise without trying anything on. When she presented a credit card, Nash’s computer screen “sa[id] there’s no authorization.” The woman presented a second card which “[d]id not go through.” Finally, she gave him a third card, a Commerce Bank Visa Card, which “went through.” Nash checked the back of the third card to ensure that it had a signature and noticed that he had seen the name on the card during an earlier transaction that day. He “just knew something wasn’t right,” so he asked the woman for identification. She stated that she did not have any. When Nash compared the signature on the card, “Susan Blaylock,” to the signature which the woman had written on the transaction receipt, “Susan Blay-lock,” he found that “the signatures were really close,” but he “just knew that it just didn’t sound right.” Nevertheless, he returned the card to the woman, who left the store with the merchandise.

Nash told another employee, “[Y]ou need to call security.” Nash then attempted to “keep an eye” on the woman who had just left the store. After seeing her walk away from an ATM machine, he saw a security officer in the mall and “jogged down there, to just get his attention to let him know” that a customer had used a credit card that was not hers. The officer asked Nash, “How do you know it’s not hers?” Nash responded, “I had a customer in my store earlier, you know, who had the same charge.” Because Nash no longer could see the woman, the officer *457 asked for a description of her. Nash described her as a “heavier set” black female wearing a green sweatshirt and black sweatpants. The officer used a walkie-talkie to report the information.

Nash and the security officer looked for the woman in other stores in the mall but could not find her. A St. Ann police officer arrived, asked Nash for another description of the woman, and asked if that description matched the one Nash had given earlier to the mall security officer. When Nash answered yes, the police officer told him to return to his store. Approximately twenty to thirty minutes later, a mall security officer went to Nash’s store and asked him to identify someone in the center court of the mall. Nash indicated that the person at the center court was not the woman he had described. The security officer, the St. Ann police officer, and Nash then stood in the center court and talked to each other.

At approximately the same time, St. Ann Detective John Lee and his captain were inside the Eddie Bauer store near the center court. They were at Northwest Plaza to assist a uniform division which “was looking for a lady possibly with some stolen credit cards.” While buying some Eddie Bauer cologne at approximately 1:10 p.m., Lee received a radio transmission regarding “a Black female about five-foot-nine, a hundred ninety pounds, green sweatshirt, black pants” whom police sought for “fraudulent use of a credit card.”

About five minutes after Nash joined the officers in the center court, he saw the woman he had described leave Father & Son, a shoe store for men near the center court, with a Lady Foot Locker bag. This sighting occurred approximately one hour after Nash had seen the woman in his store. He told the officers that she was the woman he had described. Detective Lee and his captain, who from their position also had seen the woman leave Father & Son, joined the other officers.' All of the officers then approached her, “escorted her away from the mall traffic,” and told Nash to return to his store.

The woman held a yellow Lady Foot Locker bag and a purse in her right hand and a white Father & Son bag in her left hand. When the officers asked her for identification, she opened her purse and produced a wallet containing identification for Belinda Williams. Lee noticed that defendant had three wallets in her purse. Thinking that having three wallets “was odd,” and recalling information he had received earlier about a stolen maroon wallet, he noticed that a wallet inside defendant’s purse matched the description he had received. He seized the wallet from the purse and opened it to reveal Susan Blaylock’s driver’s license and ten cards belonging to Susan Blaylock. He told defendant that she was under arrest for possession of stolen property. As defendant turned around, Lee told her to stop because he noticed a “bulge” in the left real’ pocket of her black pants. He seized a Father & Son sales receipt, a Father & Son credit card receipt bearing the signature “Susan Blay-lock,” and a Citizen’s Bank MasterCard, J.C. Penney charge card, Discover Card, and First Community Credit Union Visa Card, all having the name of Susan Blaylock on them. The two receipts from Father & Son showed that a transaction had occurred there at 1:15 p.m. on October 3, 1996. Approximately ten minutes later, a St. Ann police officer asked Nash to complete a police report and to give the officer the “white copy” of the Lady Foot Locker credit card receipt, dated October 3, 1996 at 12:56 p.m., that defendant had signed in Susan Blaylock’s name.

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State v. Williams, 978 S.W.2d 454, 1998 Mo. App. LEXIS 1695, 1998 WL 664826 (Mo. Ct. App. 1998).

978 S.W.2d 454 (State v. Williams) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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