Alexander v. State
| Decision Date | 29 April 1950 |
| Citation | 190 Tenn. 260,229 S.W.2d 331,26 Beeler 260 |
| Parties | , 190 Tenn. 260 ALEXANDER v. STATE. |
| Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
Carl Hardin, Nashville, for plaintiff in error.
J. Malcolm Shull, Assistant Attorney General, for the state.
A clear understanding of the question made by this petition to rehear requires a more than usual re-statement of the facts.
Four indictments were returned charging Ray Alexander and three other young men with the offense in each of the cases of house-breaking and larceny on a certain night. Pleas of guilty were entered by all except Alexander who was convicted in each case. He appealed each of the four cases.
Prewitt, Justice, wrote the opinion of the Court in the case wherein Alexander was convicted of breaking into the garage of Stubblefield and stealing therefrom certain articles including a pistol. That opinion affirmed the conviction. That case is styled in the briefs as case No. 1.
The Chief Justice wrote the opinion of the Court in the case in which Alexander was convicted of breaking into the store of Howard Hooper and stealing therefrom a safe containing money and papers. The conviction in that case was set aside. It is designated in the briefs as case No. 2.
Tomlinson, Justice, wrote the opinion of the Court in the case in which Alexander was convicted of breaking into the business house of Waverly Dry Cleaners and stealing clothes and money. That conviction was affirmed. It is identified in the briefs as case No. 3.
Gailor, Justice, wrote the opinion of the Court in the case in which Alexander was convicted of breaking into the business establishment of the Martha White Dry Cleaners and stealing therefrom money and clothes. That judgment of conviction was reversed. That case is known in the briefs as case No. 4.
Each of the four above mentioned opinions was announced on March 17, 1950.
Shortly after the commission of these offenses the three young men who plead guilty made detailed written confessions of their participation in each of these four crimes. These confessions stated that the defendant, Ray Alexander, participated in each of them.
At the time these confessions were made Alexander was in the penitentiary serving a sentence on some other conviction. The three young men referred to were taken by the peace officers to the penitentiary and confronted there with Alexander. Their written confessions were read in his presence and the three young men were asked by the officers if the statements therein made were true. When they replied in the affirmative, the officers asked Alexander what he had to say about it. The testimony of these officers is that Alexander replied 'I have nothing to say.'
On the same occasion at the penitentiary, but out of the presence of these three codefendants of Alexander, he, Alexander was asked by the officers as to the whereabouts of the stolen clothes and pistol referred to in the confessions of his codefendants. These officers testify that his reply was 'the same party had them but that he wouldn't tell us who it was because he didn't want to involve any one else'. These were the clothes of Waverly Dry Cleaners and Martha White Dry Cleaners which the above mentioned confessions said were left in Alexander's car, or with him.
The statement said by the officers to have been made by Alexander on the occasion mentioned, to-wit, 'I have nothing to say' was admitted over the objection of Alexander as evidence for consideration by the jury in each of the four cases. The other statement which he made according to the testimony of the officers with reference to the clothes and pistol, to-wit, 'the same party had them but that he wouldn't tell us who it was because he didn't want to involve any one else' was admitted over the objection of Alexander as evidence for the consideration of the jury in all the cases, except the one in which the Chief Justice wrote the opinion setting aside the conviction of breaking into the store of Howard Hooper.
Each of the two aforementioned statements of Alexander were introduced by the State in cases No. 1 and 3 as evidence corroborating the testimony on the trial of these cases of an accomplice George. In these cases the opinions of the Court were written by Justices Prewitt and Tomlinson, respectively.
A petition to rehear has been filed by Alexander in cases No. 1 and 3. This opinion deals with the petition to rehear in case No. 3 wherein in the opinion of the Court written by Tomlinson, Justice, the conviction of Alexander of breaking into the business house of Waverly Dry Cleaners and stealing clothes and money was affirmed.
It is asserted in the petition to rehear that the holding of the Court in the opinion written by Tomlinson, Justice, in case No. 3 (Waverly Dry Cleaners) as to the admissibility of each of the two foregoing statements of Alexander and the probative value of such statements as evidence sufficient to corroborate the testimony of an accomplice is totally 'repugnant, antagonistic to and in conflict with' the holdings in the opinion (1) of the Chief Justice in case No. 2 (Howard Hooper Store), and (2) of Justice Gailor in case No. 4 (Martha White Dry Cleaners) wherein the convictions were set aside. The petition to rehear asserts that the opinion in the Waverly Dry Cleaners case should be reconsidered and the judgment of conviction reversed in alleged keeping with the holdings in the Martha White Dry Cleaners and Hooper cases.
The logical conclusion to be reached from the face of this petition to rehear is that its author overlooked in the presentation of the insistences thereby presented the rule that the holding and language in every opinion must be considered in connection with the facts with which the Court was dealing in that particular case. Shanks v. Phillips, 165 Tenn. 401, 410, 55 S.W.2d 258.
Considered and compared in logical order, perhaps it is best to first re-examine the holding in Martha White Dry Cleaners case, opinion by Justice Gailor, in comparison with the holding in Waverly Dry Cleaners, the case here under attack.
After the corpus delicti was established by independent evidence in the Martha White Dry Cleaners case there was admitted as evidence for the consideration of the jury the two aforesaid statements of Alexander, to-wit, (1) 'I have nothing to say', and (2) with reference to the pistol and clothes, 'the same party had them but that he wouldn't tell us who it was because he didn't want to involve any one else'. This was all the evidence introduced in the Martha White Dry Cleaners case. No one testified in that case that Alexander participated in the breaking into that place of business. Hence, there was no evidence in that case for these two statements of Alexander to corroborate. Accordingly, the conviction was reversed because of the insufficiency of the evidence.
In the course of the opinion written by Gailor, Justice, for the Court in the Martha White Dry Cleaners case it is said: 'Conceding what the State argues, that Alexander's statement, 'I have nothing to say', is evasive, and so is not a denial of guilt which would be inadmissible, but is admissible as an equivalent of 'silence under accusation' (Citing cases); nevertheless, it was at most, to be treated by the jury as 'a corroborative circumstance". (Citing cases.)
There being no evidence for this statement to corroborate, it was unnecessary for the opinion to determine the admissibility of the statement, and the opinion made no holding thereon.
With reference to the aforesaid second statement of Alexander, the opinion in the Martha White Dry Cleaners case says this: 'Had there been other competent evidence that Alexander was a participant in the housebreaking, it would have been some corroboration of that charge.'
For the purpose of ascertaining whether the holding of this Court in the Waverly Dry Cleaners case (the case under attack by this petition to rehear) is in conflict with the aforesaid holding in the Martha White Dry Cleaners case a re-examination of the holding in the Waverly Dry Cleaners case is now necessary.
In the Waverly Dry Cleaners case, George, a codefendant of Alexander, was called by the State to testify. He testified that he participated in the breaking into and stealing the clothes and money from the Waverly Dry Cleaners establishment, and that Alexander actively participated therein. He gave some details. As observed in the opinion, if his testimony before the jury is true, Alexander is guilty of participating in that crime. No witness so testified in the Martha...
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Marshall v. State
...has repeatedly held that slight circumstances may furnish the necessary corroboration of an accomplice's testimony. Alexander v. State, 190 Tenn. 260, 229 S.W.2d 331; Garton v. State, 206 Tenn. 79, 332 S.W.2d 'In Stanley v. State, 189 Tenn. 110, 222 S.W.2d 384, the Court said: '(1) The suff......
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...has repeatedly held that slight circumstances may furnish the necessary corroboration of an accomplice's testimony. Alexander v. State, 190 Tenn. 260, 229 S.W.2d 331; Garton v. State, 206 Tenn. 79, 332 S.W.2d 169; State v. Fowler, 213 Tenn. 239, 373 S.W.2d 460; Williams v. State, 216 Tenn. ......
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...statements of the accomplices, the record shows that they hung their heads and made no audible response. In Alexander v. State, 190 Tenn. 260, 267, 229 S.W.2d 331 (1949), this Court, faced with a similar question in a prosecution for breaking and entering, held that when defendant was confr......
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...may be sufficient to furnish the necessary corroboration. Garton v. State, 206 Tenn. 79, 332 S.W.2d 169 (1960); Alexander v. State, 190 Tenn. 260, 229 S.W.2d 331 (1950). We reach the conclusion that there was sufficient corroborating evidence from the testimony of a seventh boy who was pres......