Crabtree v. State

• Citation: 470 N.E.2d 725
• Decision Date: 19 November 1984
• Docket Number: No. 883S289,883S289
• Parties: Darrell CRABTREE, Appellant (Defendant below), v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee (Plaintiff below).
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

Page 725

470 N.E.2d 725

Darrell CRABTREE, Appellant (Defendant below), v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee (Plaintiff below).

No. 883S289.

Supreme Court of Indiana.

Nov. 19, 1984.

J.J. Paul, III, James H. Voyles, Ober, Symmes, Cardwell, Voyles & Zahn, Indianapolis, for appellant.

Linley E. Pearson, Atty. Gen. of Ind., Charyl L. Greiner, Deputy Atty. Gen., Indianapolis, for appellee.

HUNTER, Justice.

The defendant, Darrell Crabtree, was convicted by a jury of robbery, a Class A felony, Ind. Code Sec. 35-42-5-1 (Burns 1984 Supp.) and confinement, a Class B felony, Ind. Code Sec. 35-42-3-3 (Burns 1984 Supp.) and was sentenced to the Indiana Department of Correction for concurrent terms of thirty and ten years. In this direct appeal defendant raises the following two issues:

1. Whether there was sufficient evidence on the elements of the two offenses to support the verdicts of the jury; and

2. Whether the trial court erred in denying defendant's motion for a continuance when he was unable to locate one of his witnesses.

A brief summary of the facts from the record most favorable to the state shows that on December 12, 1982, the victim, Charles Epstein, received a telephone call from an acquaintance, Phyllis Hewitt, asking if he wanted to purchase some drugs from her. Arrangements were finally made for Hewitt to bring some drugs to Epstein's house. Later that night, Hewitt and two white males came to Epstein's house and sat down in his living room. All four parties smoked a marijuana cigarette. Epstein identified the defendant as being the taller of the two men with Hewitt. The shorter man was identified as Billy Griffin. Epstein received two injections of a drug that was allegedly Desoxyn but said he felt none of the drug's usual effects. He found that some marijuana he had left in his coat pocket was missing and became afraid that the two men with Hewitt were going to rob him.

Epstein went into the dining room and called his landlord who lived in the other half of the double. He told him loudly that he needed the lock on his front door fixed. He then whispered to him to get dressed and come over because he was afraid of the woman and two men who were in his house. When Epstein returned to the living room, Griffin pulled out a black revolver, pointed it at Epstein's stomach and said he thought Epstein had called the police. Then Griffin hit Epstein over the head with the butt of the gun, knocked him down and asked him for money. Epstein gave him the money which was in his wallet, and also gave him a small bag of marijuana. Griffin then motioned for Epstein to go into the dining room and lie down on the floor. He jerked a cord out of a lamp and handed it to defendant who had also come into the dining room. Defendant wrapped the cord around Epstein's ankles. Griffin's gun went off and a bullet struck Epstein in the right ankle. Then both men and Hewitt, who had remained in the living room, left the house. Defendant testified in his own behalf and said he had not gone into the dining room and did not wrap the cord around Epstein's legs.

I.

Our standard for reviewing sufficiency claims is firmly established; on appeal the reviewing court does not weigh the evidence or judge credibility. We are constrained to consider only that evidence most favorable to the state, together with all reasonable and logical inferences to be drawn therefrom. If there is substantial evidence of probative value to support the conclusion of the trier of fact, the verdict will not be overturned. McNary v. State (1984) Ind., 460 N.E.2d 145; Tunstall v. State (1983) Ind., 451 N.E.2d 1077; Fielden v. State (1982) Ind., 437 N.E.2d 986.

Here, the record shows that defendant's accomplice testified for the state and essentially corroborated the victim's story about the sequence of events, although there was some conflict about who was actually holding the gun and who had wrapped the cord around the victim's legs. It is clear that Epstein was robbed at gunpoint, was forced to lie down on the floor with an electric cord wrapped around his legs, and was seriously injured by a shot from the gun one of his attackers was holding. His injury required him to be hospitalized for several days and to have continuing medical treatment for some time. There was testimony that before Hewitt, defendant and Griffin went to Epstein's home Hewitt told the two men that she knew someone "we could easily take some pot from." This evidence was sufficient to support all the elements of robbery as a Class A felony and confinement as a Class B felony. It also showed that there was a common scheme or plan to rob Epstein.

Our law is firmly established that an accomplice is criminally liable for the acts done by his confederates which were a probable and natural consequence of their common plan. An accomplice need not act out each element of an offense as the acts of one accomplice are imputed to all. Reynolds v. State (1984) Ind., 460 N.E.2d 506; Wilson v. State (1983) Ind., 455 N.E.2d 1120; Harris v. State (1...