Title: State v. Townsend

State: kansas

Issuer: Kansas Supreme Court

Document:

201 Kan. 122 (1968)
439 P.2d 70
STATE OF KANSAS, Appellee,
v.
JAMES CORDILL TOWNSEND, Appellant.
No. 45,020

Supreme Court of Kansas.
Opinion filed April 6, 1968.
Robert J. Foster, of Kansas City, argued the cause and was on the briefs for the appellant.
Frank D. Menghini, County Attorney, argued the cause, and Robert C. Londerholm, Attorney General, and Robert L. Serra, Assistant County Attorney, were with him on the briefs for the appellee.
The opinion of the court was delivered by
HATCHER, C.:
This is an appeal from a conviction of robbery in the first degree.
There is no serious dispute in the facts. At approximately 9:30 a.m. on October 1, 1966, the defendant and James Harold Thompson, whom defendant had known for a long time, entered the Safeway Store at 22nd Street and Quindaro Boulevard, Kansas City, Kansas. The defendant stopped immediately inside the door where he looked through a rack of phonograph records and greeting *123 cards. Thompson knew and spoke to the girl at the first check-out stand. He then proceeded to check-out stand No. 3 and handed the operator an envelope containing a note. At the time the operator noticed his hand in a pocket holding a gun.
The note read:
Thompson handed the operator a sack and told her to fill it with money. This she did. Thompson then walked past the first check-out stand carrying the sack, again spoke to his acquaintance and left the building. The manager, hearing a commotion, came to the front of the store, audited the cash register at No. 3 check-out stand and found it short $139.85.
A special police officer in civilian clothing was shopping in the store. He heard someone yell "hold-up," went to the door and saw two men running south at the side of the building. He commandeered an automobile and its driver and arrested the two several blocks from the store. He took them back to the store and turned them over to the city police. He and others returned to the place where the arrest took place and found the sack with the money. The driver of the commandeered automobile, after returning to the vicinity of the store, found Thompson's gun under the seat of the automobile.
The defendant was charged with robbery. At the trial Thompson voluntarily appeared as a witness for the defendant. He testified:
The defendant took the witness stand and testified in his own behalf as follows:
The defendant has appealed from his conviction of robbery in the first degree.
The appellant contends that the court erred in not instructing on accessory after the fact  a lesser offense. He suggests that 
The contention is without merit.
The offense of being an accessory after the fact as defined by K.S.A. 21-106 is a separate and distinct offense from that of the principal offense and the offense of aiding and abetting as defined by K.S.A. 21-105. Where the information on which the defendant is being tried does not charge an offense under K.S.A. 21-106 an instruction relative to the defendant being an accessory after the fact would be improper and the court's failure to give such an instruction is not error. In State v. McAlister, 139 Kan. 672, 33 P.2d 314, we stated at page 675 of the opinion:
The appellant next contends that the trial court erred in overruling the appellant's motion for a directed verdict of acquittal because the state failed to prove the essential elements of the crime.
Again we cannot agree with appellant's contention.
*125 If the evidence tends to disclose that the offense charged was committed and the defendant committed it, the question is for the jury to decide, even though the evidence is weak. (State v. Goetz, 171 Kan. 703, 237 P.2d 246.) We stated in State v. Dill, 182 Kan. 174, 319 P.2d 172, at page 175:
The appellant entered the store with Thompson, the admitted robber, and stood by the door while the robbery was being committed. Thompson's testimony "that his decision to hold up the store was formulated after he was inside the store and that the appellant knew nothing of the intentions" loses its effect when we recall that Thompson was carrying a gun and an envelope containing a note stating  "Stop and see, live, money or you, this is a hold-up." Also, the appellant's statement that he ran because he did not want to get involved loses its force when we recall that the appellant fled from the scene of the robbery with Thompson, after seeing Thompson run from the store with the sack containing the fruits of the robbery in his hand.
Flight may be considered as evidence along with other circumstances of the robbery. (State v. Grady, 147 Kan. 268, 76 P.2d 799; State v. Hays, 113 Kan. 588, 215 Pac. 1109.)
A careful examination of the record discloses no trial errors which would require the granting of a new trial.
The judgment is affirmed.
APPROVED BY THE COURT.