Bussey v. State
| Decision Date | 11 January 1972 |
| Docket Number | No. 44472,44472 |
| Citation | 474 S.W.2d 708 |
| Parties | Royce BUSSEY, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee. |
| Court | Texas Court of Criminal Appeals |
Fairchild & Hunt, Center, for appellant.
Jim D. Vollers, State's Atty., and Robert Huttash, Asst. State's Atty., Austin, for the State.
DAVIS, Commissioner.
This is an appeal from an arson conviction where the punishment was assessed by the jury at two years.
Appellant's sole contention is that the evidence is insufficient to support the conviction in that the record is devoid of any proof that the fire was of incendiary origin, and hence, the State has failed to establish the corpus deliciti of the offense of arson.
The record reflects that the complaining witness, Crump, testified that he had known appellant most of his life, and that he, Crump, had started going with appellant's estranged wife in the early part of 1966. Appellant became aware of this fact, and beginning about May or June of 1967, he and appellant had begun having some trouble over the relationship between Crump and appellant's wife. On one occasion, appellant came to the complaining witness's home, and finding his wife there, attacked her, and when the complaining witness tried 'to get between them', appellant kicked the witness on the shin and shoved him down to the floor. The witness (Crump) further testified that, on at least four different occasions, appellant threatened to 'burn me out.' Crump's house was destroyed by fire on August 12, 1967, while he was in Longview. Crump agreed that the house could have burned accidentally. He testified that the house was wired for electricity, had a TV, an icebox, an iron and a regulation-type fuse box, in which he did not believe a fuse had been replaced in the seventeen years he had lived in the house.
Mike Bockwich, a 9-year old boy, who lived across the road from Crump, was fishing at a pond near his home at the time of the fire, and he testified that shortly before the fire, a man drove down the road toward the Crump house in a station wagon and apparently stopped; that he heard a car door slam and the station wagon came back into view from the direction of the Crump home; that he did not recognize the driver of the vehicle, but had seen the car going to the Crump house on several previous occasions. He further testified that at nearly 5 P.M., he saw smoke coming from the direction of the Crump home and ran to his own home to report the fire and found his mother calling the fire department. Young Bockwich testified that he did not see anyone set fire to the Crump house.
Witness Herndon testified appellant was walking around a car parked in the entrance to a lane that goes to the Crump house immediately before 5 P.M.; that there was insufficient room for him (Herndon) to drive past the parked car because of an open door, and he asked appellant to shut the door so that he might pass; that as he drove up to the place where the vehicle was parked, he saw appellant coming around the car and putting what looked like a quart bottle, or a fifth, in his pocket, but he did not know what was in the bottle. Herndon further testified that the Crump house was situated in an area of roads that formed a network, and that there was nothing unusual about seeing appellant in a car in that area.
Lillie Green, the grandmother of Mike Bockwich, was fishing with him at the time of the fire. She, too, saw a station wagon come down the hill, heading toward the Crump home and identified the vehicle as being one which had been pointed out to her as belonging to appellant. She could not recognize the driver, but she did hear the car stop, a door shut and about fifteen minutes later, about 5 P.M., she saw smoke coming from the direction of the Crump home. She did not see anyone get out of the car, nor anyone go to the Crump house. She did not see anyone set fire to the house.
Appellant testified that he had driven by the Crump home, about 3 P.M., on the day of the fire but denied that he set the fire and that he...
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Troncosa v. State
...of arson additionally requires proof that the accused set the fire or was criminally connected therewith. Compare Bussey v. State, 474 S.W.2d 708, 710 (Tex.Cr.App.1972); Zepeda v. State, 139 Tex.Cr.R. 258, 139 S.W.2d 820 (1940) (Corpus delicti in arson cases established by showing (a) build......
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Davis v. State, 07-81-0008-CR
...was, if reasonable, excluded by the evidence. Appellant refers to Adrian v. State, 587 S.W.2d 733 (Tex.Cr.App.1979); Bussey v. State, 474 S.W.2d 708 (Tex.Cr.App.1972); and Duncan v. State, 109 Tex.Crim. 668, 7 S.W.2d 79 (1929), as arson cases in which circumstantial evidence greater than th......
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Faulk v. State
...of his contention that the evidence is insufficient to show that the fire was intentionally set, appellant relies on Bussey v. State, 474 S.W.2d 708 (Tex.Cr.App.). In that case, the Court found the evidence insufficient to support an arson conviction when no one saw the defendant start the ......