State v. CollinsState v. Collins
- Reporters:
- , ,
- Before:
- Foth
The opinion of the court was delivered by
Foth, C.:
Aрpellant was charged by information with attempted first degree robbery and assault with intent to kill. A jury convicted him of thе attempted robbery charged in the first count, and under the second convicted him of the lesser included offense of endangering the life of another in violation of former
The victims of the crimes involved were Mr. and Mrs. John Jаcobs, who together operated a small appliance repair shop in the Argentine district of Kansas City. At about 3:30 p. m. on Monday, December 30, 1968, Mrs. Jacobs was tending the store while her husband was in the basement shop area working. A stranger came in who responded to Mrs. Jacobs’ greeting by opening his coat and motioning toward a gun in his belt. He then motioned toward the cash register and told her not to be nervous. Taking him at his word Mrs. Jacobs promptly fled around a partition and out the back door, calling to her husband as she went, “John, a holdup.”
*535 That worthy, hеaring the call, seized a pair of heavy pliers and came up the basement stairs, only to hear the front door chime and find an empty shop. He went out the back after his wife, and at her direction around the store to an alley. There he observed a man hurrying away from him; upon being accosted the stranger broke into а run, pulled a gun and fired over his shoulder. Mr. Jacobs gave chase and was met with yet another hasty shot. Undaunted, he continued the chase, heaving the pliers just as the door of the getaway car was opened, breaking the window of the open door. Faced with a now-leveled gun, he dove behind a car parked next to the fugitivе’s, looked for something else to throw, and toyed with the idea of disabling the car by an attack on its rear-mountеd engine. While he was thus engaged the engine started and the gunman drove off.
Later that week Mr. and Mrs. Jacobs eаch independently identified the appellant as the person involved in the foregoing episode, selecting his picture from a large selection of similar pictures. They made positive in-court identifications, аs did an officer who later that day had engaged in a high speed chase with a car matching the description of the get-away car down to the broken window.
We pause to note that as the prosecuting attornеy was eliciting these identifications, and during his opening statement, he repeatedly referred to the appellant as “the criminal defendant.” The identical remarks, made by the same prosecutor, were urged as error in State v. Phippen, 208 Kan. 962, 494 P. 2d 1137. Although they are not so urged here, we reiterate and emphasize what we said there — that this court cannot condone “the use of epithets which in any way might be construed in derogation of the presumption of innocence which attaches to one on trial for crime.” (208 Kan., at 964.)
At trial, after the state had rested and it was time fоr the defense, appellant’s counsel indicated he intended to use alibi witnesses; this was the first notice to either the court or the state of such an intention. No attempt had been made to comply with former
Under similar circumstances we have gone so far as to say that even the defendant could properly be precluded from testifying that he was elsewhere at the time of the alleged crime.
State v. Rider,
194 Kan. 398, 399 P. 2d 564, Syl. ¶ 2;
State v. Kelly,
203 Kan. 360, 454 P. 2d 501, Syl. ¶ 3. See also,
State v. Sharp,
202 Kan. 644, 451 P. 2d 137, and сases cited. Here the court ruled that the defendant would be permitted to testify “as to what he pleasеs,” but that his other witnesses could not testify “in the nature of alibi.” This was all he would have been entitled to under the present code (
The error claimed in the instructions was the inclusion of various definitions, those particularly objected to being of murder and manslaughter. The second count of the information, assault with intent to kill, was based on the shots fired at Mr. Jacobs. Appellant’s objection was that he was not charged with murder or manslaughter, and that a definition of those crimes might confuse the jury to his prejudice. The trial court overruled the objection, feeling that the definitions were necessary to complement the instruction on the lesser included offense of endangering the life of Mr. Jacobs— an instruction to which the appellant did not object and which was clearly called for under the evidence. See State v. Trotter, 203 Kan. 31, 453 P. 2d 93, and cases cited at page 38.
In so ruling and instructing we think the trial court was eminently correct. The statute defining the lesser offense, former
The judgment is affirmed.
APPROVED BY THE COURT.