Bradbury v. State
| Decision Date | 23 May 1931 |
| Docket Number | A-8048. |
| Parties | BRADBURY et al. v. STATE. |
| Court | United States State Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma. Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma |
Syllabus by the Court.
In prosecution for murder, bringing defendants into courtroom through side door, manacled, held not reversible error.
It is not reversible error for the sheriff to bring prisoners into the courtroom, through a side door, for trial, manacled; the precaution apparently being necessary and the manacles having been removed and the prisoners permitted to go to their seats behind their counsel without manacles and unaccompanied by the officers, and left unmanacled during the trial.
In prosecution for murder, evidence held sufficient to support conviction.
Evidence examined, and held sufficient to support the verdict of the jury.
Additional Syllabus by Editorial Staff.
Questions by defendant's counsel whether witness had ever been mistaken in identity of person held properly excluded as immaterial and irrelevant.
Witness had positively identified defendant as one of parties shooting at deceased at time he was killed. Defendant's counsel asked witness on cross-examination whether she had ever, on any occasion, met some one and been mistaken as to such person's identity.
In prosecution for murder, testimony showing defendants were seen with pistols on day following homicide and possessed pistols when arrested held admissible.
Appeal from District Court, Oklahoma County; Sam Hooker, Judge.
H. D Bradbury and another were convicted of murder, and they appeal.
Affirmed.
James Mathers and Charles L. Roff, Jr., both of Oklahoma City, for plaintiffs in error.
J Berry King, Atty. Gen., and Smith C. Matson, Asst. Atty Gen., for the State.
Plaintiffs in error, hereinafter called defendants, were convicted in the district court of Oklahoma county of the crime of murder, and their punishment fixed by the jury at imprisonment in the state penitentiary, at hard labor, for the remainder of their natural lives.
The evidence of the state was that on the 22d day of March, 1930, the defendants robbed the Saunders grocery store at 1412 North Robinson; that at about 8:30 in the evening defendants entered the store and ordered the clerks and inmates to put up their hands; that J. D. Gates was an officer stationed at the store to watch it on Saturday nights; and that defendants began to fire their revolvers at Gates, and as a result thereof he was killed. At the beginning of the trial, the state and defendants stipulated that Gates was shot and killed at the time of the robbery. Witnesses for the state positively identified the defendants as the men who robbed the store and shot and killed Gates.
The defense was an alibi. The defendants did not take the witness stand.
Defendants contend, first, that the court erred in sustaining the state's objection to defendants' questions on cross-examination of Irene Casey.
The particular evidence complained of is:
The witness had positively identified the defendant Points as one of the parties shooting at Gates at the time he was killed.
The question in the case was, not whether the witness might have been mistaken as to the identity of some hypothetical person, but could she identify the defendant Points at the time of the trial.
Defendants next contend that the court erred in permitting testimony to be introduced by the state, over the objection of the defendants, that defendants were seen with pistols in their possession on the day following the homicide, and that, when they were arrested, some four or five days after the homicide, they had pistols in their possession at that time.
The witness Quinn, testifying for the state, said that Points had been his partner in the restaurant business; that he had seen Points and Bradbury at his café the Thursday evening before Gates was killed; that they went to Wewoka, and they called him over the telephone on Friday evening or Saturday morning; that at about 8:30 Sunday morning they came to the café, and Points put a gun in the refrigerator box; that he showed the defendants a newspaper giving an account of the Gates killing, and told Bradbury it was a pretty good description of him; that Points stayed in the café and Bradbury went to bed; that Sunday evening about 9:30 or 10 o'clock defendant Bradbury was up fooling with an automatic gun; that on Monday morning they took their clothes down town; that they had on the same hats they were wearing Sunday morning; that in the afternoon, when they returned to the café, Bradbury was wearing a cap and Points had changed from a cap to a hat.
Jack...
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