United States v. Merrill Dean Eskridge and Harold Earl Spencer

Appellants were indicted, tried by a jury and convicted of the crime of armed bank robbery in violation of 18 U.S. C. § 2113(a) and (d). From the judgments of conviction and sentences of fifteen years each, they appeal. We affirm.

BACKGROUND

About 4:00 P.M. on August 21, 1970, a person armed with a gun similar to an Army .45 automatic entered the North Pacific Bank in Tacoma, Washington and took from the manager and two tellers $8,759.00, which he placed in a brown paper bag. He was followed and seen by two witnesses to enter a car parked on the other side of an adjacent building. One witness testified that two men were waiting in the car and that one of them drove the get-away car, while another witness testified that the robber drove the car away and that there was only one waiting occupant. Shortly, thereafter, Giles Braswell, who later testified for the government, was identified as the bank robber.

An informant connected appellant Es-kridge with the robbery. While in custody as an army deserter and a state parole violator, Eskridge admitted that he knew Braswell, but only as “Brother Giles”, and that he knew Braswell robbed a bank because he saw him enter the bank and…