Davis v. State

• Decision Date: 09 November 1971
• Docket Number: No. 44088,44088
• Citation: 474 S.W.2d 466
• Parties: John Wayne DAVIS, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee.
• Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

Page 466

474 S.W.2d 466

John Wayne DAVIS, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee.

No. 44088.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.

Nov. 9, 1971.

Rehearing Denied Jan. 18, 1972.

Melvyn Carson Bruder, Dallas (Court appointed), for appellant.

Henry Wade, Dist. Atty., John B. Tolle and Robert T. Baskett, Asst. Dist. Attys., Dallas, and Jim D. Vollers, State's Atty., Austin, for the State.

OPINION

DOUGLAS, Judge.

This is an appeal from a conviction for burglary with intent to commit theft. The punishment was assessed by the court at five years.

The sufficiency of the evidence is challenged.

The record reflects that the service station was locked up at 10:00 o'clock at night and it had been entered without the consent of the manager. Officer Gowin of the Dallas Police Department testified that he was working in the Oak Cliff area between 11:30 p.m. and 7:30 a.m. on the night in question and that he passed the service station every one and a half to two and a half hours while on duty. When he drove by at about 3:40 a.m., he saw an automobile with its headlights on in front of the office of the service station. He then saw a man walking bent over from inside the service station to the car with something in his hand which he put in the car. Officer Gowin approached the station and the man looked up, turned around and walked back into the station closing the door behind him. He then looked through the door at the officer, took a sock off his right hand and let it drop to the floor. He testified that this man was the appellant. The officer recovered the sock which was introduced into evidence. Officer Gowin asked the appellant what he was doing, and '(H)e said he came in to get some gas and that it looked like somebody had broken into the office.' The officer then placed the appellant under arrest and found a padlock in his right front pocket. He noticed that the hasp on the lock had been pried off the door and the cigarette cabinet inside the station had been pried open and the handle was torn off. Two cartons of cigarettes were found in the automobile that was parked at the station. A pry-bar with some white paint on it was found under the cigarette machine and there was white paint on the front door of the service station.

On cross-examination, the officer testified that he had checked the station an hour and a half to two hours prior to the time he saw the appellant at the station and that the padlock was on the door.

The jury had sufficient evidence to conclude that appellant was guilty.

The appellant's main contention is that the court refused to charge on an exculpatory statement. He contends that the officer's testimony stating: 'He (appellant) said he came in to get some gas and that it looked like somebody had broken into the office' was the exculpatory statement. If the statement that appellant drove in to get some gas and it looked like somebody had broken into the office is an admission, then it does not follow that the appellant did not enter the building with intent to commit theft. He could have formed the intent after he got there.

In McIntire v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 431 S.W.2d 5, it is written that where the State '(p)ut before the jury statements of the accused which, if true, would entitle him to an acquittal, there should be some direct and positive instruction given * * *.' See Robidoux v. State, 116 Tex.Cr.R. 432, 34 S.W.2d 863. Does this statement of the appellant, if true, entitle him to an acquittal?

Exculpatory is defined as clearing or tending to clear from alleged fault or guilt. Moore v. State, 124 Tex.Cr.R. 97, 60 S.W.2d 453. The statement in the present case does not show that the door was open and does not deny that appellant committed the crime of burglary.

If someone else had broken into the office of the service station, this did not preclude appellant's guilt. The opening of a door through which entry is made into a building which is not completely closed constitutes a breaking under Article 1394, Vernon's Ann.P.C. Woody v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 461 S.W.2d 411. The appellant did not say that the door was open. In Martin v. State, 1 Tex.App. 525 (1877), the Texas Court of Appeals wrote: 'In this State, when any force is applied, even if it be the pushing wider of a partly-open door * * * the party so entering said house is guilty of burglary.'

The fact that appellant drove in a droveway of a closed service station at 3:40 a.m. to get gas (if he did so) does not show that he did not later break and enter the building with the intent to commit theft.

In Robertson v. State, 159 Tex.Cr.R. 552, 265 S.W.2d 591, the conviction was for possession of whiskey in a dry area for the purpose of sale. Robertson told the officer as he was arrested that 'he was going to take a drink and was trying to break the seal.' This was introduced by the State. Even though this would probably have tended to indicate (if true) that Robertson had no intent to sell the whiskey but to take a drink, this Court held this statement was not sufficient to exculpate his possession for the purpose of sale.

Wormley v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 366 S.W.2d 565, is relied upon by the appellant. That case was reversed not on the court's charge, but for the insufficiency of the evidence to disprove an exculpatory statement. There, a written statement was introduced as a confession. In this statement Wormley told the officers that James Hughes had told him that he (Hughes) had just burglarized a Welch furniture warehouse and had two television sets stashed under some bushes; that Welch and 'Tiny' and Wormley went to the warehouse and Wormley picked up the two television sets and placed them in the back seat of the car and saw James Hughes coming back from the warehouse with another television set. Also contained in that statement was the following: 'I want to state that I never went inside the building. James Hughes was the only one that went inside the building.'

The Court held the evidence insufficient to show burglary upon the theory of a second entry into the warehouse by Hughes while Wormley was loading the car from the first entry for there was no evidence that the second entry was made by force rather than through a door that had been left open by Hughes and there was no evidence to corroborate the appellant's statement that there was a second entry.

That case was not reversed upon a failure to charge upon an exculpatory statement but on the insufficiency of the evidence to disprove that statement.

In the present case, if it could be said that the statement were exculpatory, there was sufficient evidence to disprove it. Officer Gowin testified that he saw the appellant leaving the building with a small package and place it in the car; that the appellant then returned to the building, closed the door and pulled the sock from his right arm letting it fall to the floor. The evidence also shows that the appellant had the padlock in his pocket.

In Brown v. State, 475 S.W.2d 938, 1971, the conviction was for the murder of his parents. This Court held that a statement of Brown in an interview with the district attorney that he came home shortly after 5 p.m. on the date in question and changed clothes and when he left his father was 'still in the fields' wearing coveralls and that he (Brown) did not know how blood had gotten on his shirt when it was shown to him was not exculpatory. The Court stated:

'We do not view either of these statements, introduced by the State, as being exculpatory so as to require the charge requested. See McClelland v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 389 S.W.2d 678. As in Gibson v. State, 53 Tex.Cr.R. 349, 110 S.W. 41, 48, there is no admission or statement admitting the killings but seeking to justify and excuse the same. The statements were offered by the State 'as tending to show the account given by appellant was untrue, known by him to be untrue, and therefore incriminating evidence against him, in that they show an effort and scheme to shield himself from the force and effect of his presence at the scene of the homicide and other facts tending to connect him with the murder.' See also Asner v. State, 138 Tex.Cr.R. 420, 136 S.W.2d 822, 826; Grady v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 466 S.W.2d 770.'

In the present case the statement did not amount to an admission and therefore there was nothing that required a clearing, or exculpating from fault or guilt.

The statement made by the appellant was not exculpatory. Even if it could be assumed that it was exculpatory, the question arises whether reversible error exists for failing to submit the charge that the State was bound to disprove the statement.

This Court has held that where an accused is seen inside a burglarized building he is not entitled to a charge on circumstantial evidence. Thomas v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 387 S.W.2d 665. However, in this case the trial court charged the jury, in part, that the circumstances taken together must be of a conclusive nature leading on the whole to a satisfactory conclusion and producing in effect a reasonable and moral certainty that the accused acting alone or as a principal committed the offense charged. The court also instructed the jury in substance that the circumstances must exclude 'to a moral certainty, every other reasonable hypothesis except the defendant's guilt, and unless they do so, beyond a reasonable doubt, you will find the defendant not guilty.'

Article 36.19, Vernon's Ann.C.C.P., provides:

'Whenever it appears by the record in any criminal action upon appeal that any requirement of Articles 36.14, 36.15, 36.16, 36.17 and 36.18 (which concern and refer to errors in the charge and failing to give requested charges) has been disregarded, the judgment shall not be reversed unless the error appearing from the record was calculated to injure the rights of the defendant, or unless it appears from the record that the defendant has not had a fair and impartial trial. * * *'

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