United States v. Richard Albert Jenkins

496 F.2d 57
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Second Circuit
DecidedApril 5, 1974
Docket691, 712, 713 and 739, Dockets 73-2414, 73-2458, 73-2459 and 73-2461
StatusPublished
Cited by168 cases

This text of 496 F.2d 57 (United States v. Richard Albert Jenkins) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Richard Albert Jenkins, 496 F.2d 57 (2d Cir. 1974).

Opinion

MANSFIELD, Circuit Judge:

After a jury trial before Judge Jon O. Newman of the District of Connecticut appellants were found guilty of robbing the Hayestown Avenue Branch of the Union Trust Company in Danbury, Connecticut, on September 14, 1972, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2113(a), (b) and (d), and 2(a) and (b). Jenkins and Wilcox were sentenced to 18 years and Hall to 8 years in prison. Morrow was sentenced, pursuant to the penal section of the Federal Juvenile Delinquency Act, 18 U.S.C. § 5034, to the custody of the Attorney General for the period of her *61 minority. Upon this appeal they contend that a plethora of errors mandate reversal. We disagree, and for the reasons stated below we affirm the judgments of conviction against Jenkins, Wilcox and Hall but we remand the judgment of conviction against Morrow in order that its form may be made to comply with 18 U.S.C. § 5034.

The prosecution of appellants arose out of the armed robbery of the Hayestown Avenue Branch of the Union Trust Company in Danbury, Connecticut, on the morning of September 14, 1972. The evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to the government, United States v. McCarthy, 473 F.2d 300, 302 (2d Cir. 1972), reveals the following:

At the time of the robbery some bank employees and several customers were present in the bank. According to these witnesses — some 15 in all — the robbery was carried out by approximately four or five persons, all of whom were Negro and at least one of whom was female. At 10:15 A.M., as Darlene Smith, a teller working ■ at the bank’s drive-in window, was attempting to serve a Negro male sitting in a stationwagon, another Negro male strode into the bank’s lobby with a gun in one hand and in the other a can of spray paint which he quickly used to spray over the lens of the bank’s surveillance camera. Seconds later this initial intruder, who was bearded from sideburn to sideburn and wore a brown felt hat with a piece of torn material on it and a shiny brown leather jacket, substituted a black pistol for his can of paint and stood in the center of the bank floor, forcing everyone to stand still. Thereupon a Negro female, clad in slacks and wearing a woman’s stocking over her head, and a Negro male, wearing sunglasses and a shirt with crew neck, entered the bank, leaped over the teller counters and collected money from the bank’s vault, where the bank manager and the head teller were located, and from the teller counters. The robber wearing sunglasses carried a snub-nosed revolver. Included in the money collected and put in a light canvas shopping bag held by the female robber were some bills which had been marked “mutilated” and some “bait money,” i. e., money whose serial numbers had previously been recorded.

The robbers remained in the bank for only a short period of time, a matter of several minutes. As they were leaving they instructed everyone in the bank to lie on the floor but, in their haste, they left behind a paper bag which later turned out to bear appellant Morrow’s fingerprint on it. Immediately after the robbers had left John Patton, a bank customer, ran to a window and saw the robbers drive off in the Ford stationwagon which had been parked just minutes earlier at Darlene Smith’s drive-in window. The car bore Connecticut registration plates matching those on a Ford station-wagon stolen earlier that morning.

The government offered both direct and circumstantial evidence to support its charge that appellants were the robbers. In addition to eyewitness testimony by some who were present at the robbery itself, proof was introduced to show that on September 1, 1972, two weeks before the robbery, Wilcox, Hall and Morrow, accompanied by Mrs. Hall, the Halls’ baby and one James Bailey, arrived in Danbury in Wilcox’s late model red and white Mercury Cougar bearing North Carolina license plates and began frequenting the residence of one Daisy Mae Blakney, 42A Virginia Avenue, Danbury. Several days prior to the robbery Roy Johnsen, the bank’s head teller and Darlene Smith, one of the other tellers, had seen two Negroes parked outside the bank in an automobile matching the description of Wilcox’s Cougar. On the night before the robbery Jenkins and his friend Corinne Shelly were joined by Wilcox at the Palace Theatre in Danbury.

Early on the morning of September 14, 1972, several hours before the robbery, Jenkins obtained a .38 calibre silver plated gun with a pearl handle and a black gun with bullets from Corinne Shelly and Mary Council. Jenkins, Mor *62 row, Wilcox and Hall then departed in two cars. Less than an hour later Wilcox, Hall and Morrow were seen at 42A Virginia Avenue, Daisy Mae Blakney’s house. At some point during the morning a 1965 Ford Country Squire station-wagon owned by one James Cavanaugh was stolen from a Danbury parking lot. Within a half hour before the robbery a tall Negro male purchased a can of black spray paint in a paper bag from a Grant’s store located in the same shopping center as the bank.

Shortly before 11:00 A.M., which was less than a half hour after the robbery, four or five black persons were seen to alight from a stationwagon, one carrying a dark bag, at a point about one mile from the bank and 620 feet from 42A Virginia Avenue (Daisy Mae Blakney’s residence). They proceeded toward the latter address while the driver remained in the car and drove it away. Within a short time Wilcox, Morrow, Hall and Bailey arrived at 42A Virginia Avenue, Hall with a white handled gun protruding from his belt. There they were joined by Jenkins. By early afternoon Jenkins, who had worn a beard and an Afro hair style in the morning appeared with a clean-shaven face and clipped hair. Corinne Shelly, who had in the morning obtained the guns for Jenkins before the robbery, asked Jenkins if he had robbed the bank, to which he replied “yes,” giving details as to the robbery.

Two hours after the robbery the stolen getaway stationwagon was discovered in Danbury, with a “popped” ignition and the motor running, a short distance from the point where the four or five Negroes were seen to have left it. On the rear view mirror was appellant Hall’s fingerprint. On the seat was a black plastic can-top, a Grant’s sales slip (later identified as issued on the morning of the robbery by the Grant store near the bank) and a gold button. James Tallón, Chief of the Danbury Police Department, and Robert O'Neil, an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, immediately began an investigation through the neighborhood where the car was discovered, which led them within an hour to the home of Daisy Mae Blakney at 42A Virgina Avenue. The officers were permitted to enter the Blakney home by a woman named Frances Gary, who was Mr. Blakney’s sister and who rented the back bedroom of the first floor of the home. There were four rooms on the first floor, including a front bedroom, a kitchen, dining room, and then Gary’s back bedroom. As they were led through the front bedroom and into the kitchen, Tallón and O’Neil observed several persons in the house including three Negro males and a female. Two of the males would not produce any identification while the third produced a North Carolina driver’s license bearing the name Lyles.

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Bluebook (online)
496 F.2d 57, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-richard-albert-jenkins-ca2-1974.