Cissell v. Com.
| Decision Date | 06 October 1967 |
| Citation | 419 S.W.2d 555 |
| Parties | Bennie CISSELL, Appellant, v. COMMONWEALTH of Kentucky, Appellee. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court — District of Kentucky |
James G. Apple, Paducah, for appellant.
Robert Matthews, Atty. Gen., Howard E. Trent, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.
Bennie Cissell appeals from a judgment sentencing him to two years in the penitentiary pursuant to a jury verdict finding him guilty of storehouse breaking. KRS 433.190. The only ground asserted in support of a reversal is that the evidence is not sufficient to justify a finding of guilt.
The indictment charged the appellant and Troy Belt with having broken into the drycleaning establishment of W. D. Adams in Paducah, Kentucky, on or about December 5, 1966. The evidence was substantially as follows:
On the morning of December 6, 1966, when Adams opened his place for business he discovered that a goodly quantity of clothing had been removed during the preceding night. Access to the building had been gained through a small window nine to ten feet above ground level. The window was opposite the back of a dwelling occupied by Bennie Cissell's brother and sister-in-law, with whom Bennie made his home. The premises were so situated that one looking out this particular window of the drycleaning place would see the back porch of the Cissell house 60 to 75 feet away, with a fence separating the two properties. In the fence was a gate. It had rained during the night, and in the soft earth Adams observed two or more sets of footprints leading from his building to the Cissell residence through the gate.
Marie Dixon, a girl friend of Bennie Cissell, was staying at the Cissell place at the time in question. She testified that she was awakened when Bennie and Troy Belt came into the house at 2:30 or 3:00 A.M. In the morning, she says, she noticed that Troy was wearing a car coat she had never seen before, and she and Bennie were told by him 'that there were clothes' in the house. After Troy had departed, taking the coat and a red sweater, she told Bennie to get the clothes out of the house or she would leave. At that time the clothes were in a closet, and Bennie moved them to a concealed place in the bathroom ceiling, saying he would leave them there 'until the next night or until somebody came and got them.'
As it developed, Bennie did not remove the articles from their place of concealment over the bathroom until more than a week later, when the police evidently had put the finger on Troy Belt. Joan Wright, a young lady who professed a kindly interest in Belt, then went to see Bennie at his place of employment as a taxi driver and asked him to give her the stolen clothes so that she might return them, hoping thereby to obtain some degree of clemency for Belt. Bennie at first demurred, saying the police 'didn't know, or couldn't prove that they stole them, without the evidence.' But Joan persisted, and Bennie agreed to get the clothes for her but she was not to tell where she got them. They went from the taxi office to the Cissell home where, after telling his sister-in-law 'to go upstairs for a few minutes, that he had something to do,' Bennie got a hammer from the kitchen and proceeded to remove the hidden clothing from the bathroom ceiling. Joan drove Bennie back to the cab station and then turned the articles in question over to the police. Among them were numerous items identified during the trial as having been stolen from the drycleaning place during the night of December 5--6, 1966. At some time later Bennie told Joan he could prove he was somewhere else if she told on him.
Joan testified also that one night while she and another girl were in a car with Bennie and Troy Belt at the cab company Bennie 'told Troy to keep his mouth shut, that the less people knew about it the...
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Little v. Com.
...Ky., 357 S.W.2d 667 (1962); Wheeler v. Com., Ky., 395 S.W.2d 565 (1965); Johnson v. Com., Ky., 403 S.W.2d 36 (1966) and Cissell v. Com., Ky., 419 S.W.2d 555 (1967). The testimony had sufficient probative value to sustain the verdict of the jury. McBrayer v. Com., Ky., 406 S.W.2d 855 (1966) ......
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