Barrett v. State

• Decision Date: 14 December 1960
• Docket Number: No. A-12893,A-12893
• Citation: 357 P.2d 1020
• Parties: Johnny BARRETT, Plaintiff in Error, v. STATE of Oklahoma, Defendant in Error.
• Court: United States State Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma. Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma

Page 1020

357 P.2d 1020

Johnny BARRETT, Plaintiff in Error, v. STATE of Oklahoma, Defendant in Error.

No. A-12893.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma.

Dec. 14, 1960.

Syllabus by the Court.

1. Where the sufficiency of the evidence to corroborate an accomplice is challenged, this court will take the strongest view of the corroborating testimony that such testimony will warrant, and, if it can say that there is corrobrating evidence tending to connect the defendant with the commission of the offense, it will uphold the verdict.

2. Extravagant statements by the county attorney that defendant should be given 100 years in the penitentiary etc., when prejudicial to defendant, are grounds for modification of sentence and judgment.

This is an appeal by Johnny Barrett from a judgment and sentence of 20 years in the State Penitentiary for the crime of burglary in the second degree as a subsequent offender, rendered by the District Court of Garvin County; Joe D. Shumate, Judge. Modified and affirmed.

Raymond Burger, Pauls Valley, for plaintiff in error.

Mac Q. Williamson, Atty. Gen., Sam H. Lattimore, Asst. Atty. Gen., Carroll J. Bowie, County Atty., Pauls Valley, for defendants in error.

BRETT, Judge.

This is an appeal by Johnny J. Barrett, Plaintiff in Error, and defendant below, wherein he was charged by information with the crime of burglary in the 2nd degree as a second and subsequent offender. The crime was allegedly committed on December 2, 1958; he was tried by a jury, convicted, and his punishment was fixed by the jury at 20 years in the state penitentiary. Judgment and sentence was entered accordingly on October 29, 1959. From the judgment and sentence so imposed, this appeal has been perfected.

Briefly, the facts establish that in the nighttime on December 2, 1958, the defendant and another accomplice broke into the Western Store operated by Mr. G. M. Morris, in Lindsay, Oklahoma, where they allegedly removed the cash register from the store and a quantity of cowboy boots. Defendant allegedly gained entrance into the store through the skylight by forcible means. A boy named Charles Castoe, 16 years of age, sat in the automobile as a lookout, while the defendant and his accomplice consummated the burglary. A few days after the burglary was consummated, the defendant was arrested in Clinton, Oklahoma, by the police. Defendant was wearing a slightly worn pair of boots similar to those taken from Morris' store. It was established by Castoe that defendant was in the vicinity of said store on the day of the burglary, and by Mr. Morris that the Western Store had been burglarized. The testified that the cash register, found later abandoned near Lindsay, Oklahoma, was his cash register.

When the defendant was arrested in Clinton, Oklahoma, about 20 feet from his automobile under a pile of rubbish covered by tree limbs, were found several pairs of boots corresponding in size and style and color, to those taken in the burglary of the Western Store. Empty boxes on the store floor designating style and size, likewise corresponded to that of the boots thus found. The cash register testified to by the accomplice Castoe, was found on top of a hill out toward 'Hughes School' where Castoe told officers that they had thrown it away. When...