United States v. Eugene Bradford, United States of America v. John Edward Jackson
Opinion
Opinion
These appeals by the defendants from bank robbery convictions raise the question of the effect of one defense attorney’s candid admission in his argument that the identification of defendants as the robbers was overwhelming.
One defendant claims that such action was by incompetent counsel for him and the other that such a concession was so improper and prejudicial as to deny him a fair trial.
A Bank of America branch in Oxnard, California was robbed by two armed and masked men (one Negro and the other Mexican or Negro) shortly before noon on December 21, 1973. A California Highway Patrol officer (after a radio call about the robbery, the robbers and the getaway car) stationed himself on the center divider of a freeway, which was one of the possible escape routes. A short time later the California Highway Patrol officer saw a speeding vehicle which did not match the description of the alleged getaway car but did contain two adult Negro males. The officer stopped this car to issue a speeding citation, and the driver, defendant Bradford, took the officer’s gun by force, fired several shots at him, and then re-entered his own car and fled.