Court Opinion

ID: 9654240
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 18:11:20.582518+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:07.243360
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing or to Transfer
PER CURIAM.
The only point presented in appellant’s motion for rehearing or to transfer is that the fifth point in his brief was overlooked. The point reads: “The court erred in giving instruction No. 2 over the objection of defendant, there being no evidence in the record that the defendant entered into a conspiracy or common design for anyone else to take the life of deceased and is inconsistent with and irreconcilable with the State’s theory of the case.” Instruction No. 2 was to the effect that all persons are equally guilty who act together with a common purpose in the commission of a crime and the act of one of them, proceeding according to the common plan, is the act of each. In State v. Buckley, 309 Mo. 38, 274 S.W. 74, 76, the only authority cited in appellant’s brief to the point, the evidence was considered insufficient to connect the defendants with the acts of the person committing the homicide. As stated in the instant opinion there was direct evidence of appellant’s participation in the instant conspiracy and the Buckley case does not establish error. The State’s main instruction proceeded upon the theory that deceased was killed as the result of the conspiracy; that appellant was a participant therein, and that appellant was the conspirator who actually killed deceased. The jury was not authorized to convict appellant unless they so found. Instruction No. 2 did not direct a verdict. It stated the law regarding a conspiracy to commit an offense and under the evidence the giving of the instruction was proper. 23 C.J.S., Criminal Law, § 1287, Conspiracy, page 8i61.
Appellant’s motion for rehearing or, in the alternative, to transfer to Court en Banc is overruled.