Erby v. State
| Decision Date | 31 July 1987 |
| Docket Number | No. 785S271,785S271 |
| Citation | 511 N.E.2d 302 |
| Parties | John ERBY, Appellant, v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee. |
| Court | Indiana Supreme Court |
Charles A. Beck, Indianapolis, for appellant.
Linley E. Pearson, Atty. Gen., Michael Gene Worden, Deputy Atty. Gen., Indianapolis, for appellee.
This is a direct appeal following conviction of two counts of class B felony robbery. A fifteen year sentence was imposed for Count I and a ten year sentence for Count II.
There are three issues presented for review: (1) whether there was sufficient evidence to support the determinations of guilt; (2) whether the convictions were contrary to law; and (3) whether the trial court erred in its sentencing determination.
These are the facts from the record which tend to support the determination of guilt: A Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant was robbed on August 31, 1983, (Count I), and on September 13, 1983, (Count II). The restaurant was equipped with a surveillance camera which was activated during each robbery. Two employees who were working on August 31, 1983, identified appellant as one of the men who robbed them. Three photographs taken by the surveillance camera at the time of the robbery showed a bearded individual wearing a green camouflage baseball cap. Police located a similar cap at appellant's residence and a photograph of appellant with a beard. An employee who was working at the restaurant on September 13, 1983, and a customer who was in the restaurant on that date identified appellant as one of the men who committed the robbery. Several surveillance camera photographs taken at the time showed a bearded individual resembling appellant.
Appellant urges that there was insufficient evidence to prove he was the perpetrator of the robberies and that the verdicts were contrary to law since the State failed to provide sufficient evidence of identity.
If appellant had been arrested during the commission of the robberies or if his fingerprints were found inside the cash drawer, the State's proof of identity would have been stronger. However, it is not necessary to have that degree of evidence of identity of the perpetrator in order to support a conviction. Eyewitness identification and numerous photographs, the evidentiary value of which the jury may decide itself, are more than sufficient evidence from which the jury could reasonably infer that appellant was one of the perpetrators in each of the robberies.
III
Appellant further urges that the trial court erred by not providing an adequate basis for aggravating the sentence in Count I and in ordering his sentence on both Counts to run consecutively with an apparently at that time undetermined sentence from another court.
The first argument here is based upon the premise that the trial judge failed to state adequate grounds for the aggravation of the one robbery sentence. In adding five years to the presumptive term...
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