Beck v. State
| Decision Date | 04 April 1978 |
| Docket Number | 7 Div. 560 |
| Citation | 365 So.2d 985 |
| Parties | Gilbert Franklin BECK, alias v. STATE. |
| Court | Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals |
James F. Hinton and Donald W. Stewart, Gadsden, for appellant.
William J. Baxley, Atty. Gen. and James F. Hampton, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State, appellee.
Capital felony; death.
This cause is before this court under the Automatic Appeal Act; Act No. 213, Acts of Alabama, 1975, which mandates that appellant, Gilbert Franklin Beck's death sentence set by the circuit court of Etowah County, be reviewed by this court.
It is an appeal from a conviction of murder under Alabama's new Death Penalty Act, committed during the course of a robbery.
Pursuant to this authority, the judgment of conviction and sentence of death have been given a priority review as has been the practice of this court in considering all death cases.
Gilbert Franklin Beck was indicted by the grand jury of Etowah County on a charge of robbery with aggravating circumstances of intentionally killing the victim. The indictment, omitting the formal parts reads as follows:
"Gilbert Franklin Beck . . . . whose name to the Grand Jury is otherwise unknown than as stated, feloniously took three (3) twenty-dollar bills, lawful United States currency, of the value of $60.00; one (1) ten-dollar bill, lawful United States currency, of the value of $10.00; and three (3) one-dollar bills, lawful United States currency, of the value of $3.00, all of the aggregate value of $73.00, the property of Roy Malone, from his person or in his presence, and against his will, by violence to his person, or by putting him in such fear as unwillingly to part with the same, and during the course of said robbery the said defendant did unlawfully and intentionally, and with malice aforethought, kill Roy Malone, the victim of said robbery, by cutting the said Roy Malone with a knife. . . ."
On November 29, 1977, a motion to quash the indictment was filed along with a petition for a change of venue and a motion to produce. On February 10, 1977, the court granted the defendant's motion to produce and on February 18, 1977, appellant's motion for a mental examination was also granted. An amended motion to quash the indictment was filed on February 25, 1977, and this motion and the petition for a change of venue were both denied.
On February 25, 1977, the court ordered that the appellant be sent to Bryce Hospital for a mental examination and, on that date, defendant filed a demurrer to the indictment. Approximately three months later, June 10, 1977, the defendant filed an additional motion to quash and it, along with the demurrer to the indictment, was overruled.
On that same day an arraignment was held at which time the appellant declined to plead. The court entered a plea on behalf of the accused of not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity.
Following jury selection, the trial of the case was begun on June 20, 1977.
The evidence produced at trial established that on November 8, 1976, the appellant and one Roy Frank Clements drove to the home of Roy Malone. Malone's home was located in the Shady Grove community in the northern part of Etowah County, near the town of Boaz, Alabama. Mr. Malone was an eighty-year old retired veterinarian and lived in a house with his housekeeper, Dora Mae Ford.
It is uncontroverted that the appellant and Clements went to the Malone home for the specific purpose of robbing Malone. After driving to the Malone home in the appellant's pickup truck, the appellant and Clements engaged Mr. Malone in conversation in his yard. They had gone there on the pretext of making an inquiry concerning some materials for building chicken pens.
The conversation continued for a few minutes when a yellow Chevrolet, occupied by three men, arrived at the house. The men got out of the car where appellant and Clements were talking to Mr. Malone, and after a short conversation, the appellant and Clements left and returned to Clements' apartment in Boaz. They had left Clements' wife, Debbie, and Mary Ann Thrasher, the woman with whom the appellant had been living for some time, at the apartment.
The appellant and Clements remained at Clements' apartment with the two women until approximately 2:00 P.M., when they again left in the appellant's pickup truck for the Malone residence. Around 2:30 P.M., they arrived at the Malone house the second time. They went inside and found Mr. Malone in the kitchen. Clements, saying that he was going to the bathroom, left the appellant and Mr. Malone alone in the kitchen. Within a short time, Clements returned, and, at a given signal, the appellant grabbed Mr. Malone around the waist and the two wrestled to the floor.
According to the appellant, he and Clements had previously discussed tying Malone up with a rope. The appellant said that while he and Malone were on the floor scuffling he was trying to tie the old man. At that point, appellant testified that Clements came up to Malone and cut him on the right side of his neck. The appellant then stepped over the old man's body, left the house and went to the truck. According to Beck, Clements remained behind in the house approximately three minutes, then came outside carrying a lady's purse and Malone's wallet.
Beck said they subsequently left and returned to Clements' apartment in Boaz, Alabama. When they arrived the women were not there and they could not get into the apartment so they drove to the appellant's trailer and waited there for the two women. Within about fifteen minutes the women arrived and it was then that they determined that some seventy-three dollars was involved in the robbery.
Theron Malone testified that he was the son of the victim and stated that on November 8, 1976, he had gone to his father's house between 4:20 and 4:30 P.M. Theron Malone said that he was alone at the time and that he entered the house though the kitchen where he found his father's body on the floor. During the trial, he identified not only pictures depicting his father's body, but also identified a wallet which he said belonged to his father. Malone added that he had given the wallet to his father as a Christmas present.
Don Longshore, an investigator with the Etowah County Sheriff's Department, stated that he had made an investigation concerning Malone's death. He testified that he had gone to the Malone home at approximately 5:30 P.M. on the day of the homicide. Longshore said that he remained at the residence for about thirty minutes, then left with his partner, Mr. Hatley, Donald Wiggins and two uniformed deputies and drove to the appellant's house trailer.
According to Longshore, on their arrival, he found the appellant and Mary Ann Thrasher in the trailer. He informed Beck that he wanted to talk to him, and at that point, Thrasher said that he needed to talk to Roy Clements also. Further, Longshore recalled that the Thrasher woman indicated that the appellant and Clements had been together all afternoon.
Longshore testified that, the appellant and Thrasher were placed in one of the squad cars and sent to the courthouse. Afterwards the officers went to the apartment of Roy Clements and he, too, was taken into custody.
Longshore went on to say that after receiving written permission to make a search of the trailer, he and the officers returned to the trailer and while there took into custody a pair of men's boots found in a pickup truck parked at the rear of the trailer. The officers also took into custody a barrel with burned clothing in it that was sitting outside the trailer. The boots were taken to police headquarters and the barrel and the pickup truck were removed to Rodgers' Wrecker Service yard.
After appellant had been warned of his rights, he signed a waiver and made a statement. That waiver and statement were accepted into evidence and read as follows:
DATE 11-9-76 TIME 11:05 A.M. PLACE Etowah...
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