Fields v. State, 43880
| Decision Date | 16 June 1971 |
| Docket Number | No. 43880,43880 |
| Citation | 468 S.W.2d 71 |
| Parties | Willie FIELDS, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee. |
| Court | Texas Court of Criminal Appeals |
R. H. Stauffacher, Jr., Houston, for appellant.
Carol S. Vance, Dist. Atty., James C. Brough and Robert C. Bennett, Jr., Asst. Dist. Attys., Houston, and Jim D. Vollers, State's Atty., Austin, for the State.
This is an appeal from a conviction for murder. The punishment was assessed by the jury at life.
The main contentions of the appellant are that an oral confession was erroneously admitted and that there was insufficient evidence to corroborate the confession.
The record reflects that on the morning of June 12, 1968, Winslow Thompson, a 79-year-old man, was working his garden at his home in Houston when he saw a young woman lying on the ground. At first he thought she was drunk and later realized that she was dead.
Dr. Joseph Jachimczyk testified that he performed an autopsy on the 19-year-old woman named Betty Young. He testified that there was swelling of the eyes, abrasions on her face and neck and over her shoulder blade, a fractured hyoid bone and thyroid cartilage or Adams apple. He also testified that there was blood in the backside of the neck. He also found spermatozoa in the victim's vagina and rectum. The cause of death, according to the doctor, was asphyxia due to strangulation.
Joe Mathis testified that he operated Joe's Blue Flame, a lounge, at 1921 Gregg, about two blocks from Lyons Avenue, and that he saw Willie Fields and Betty Young, the deceased, in his place between 10:30 and 11:00 p.m. the night in question.
Heartful Smith testified that he was in his upholstery shop in the 3900 block of Lyons Avenue between 11:30 and 12:00 p.m. on the night of June 11, 1968, when he saw the deceased walking by and the appellant walking behind her.
Alvia Fountain testified that on the night in question she saw Betty Young, her cousin, at the Mixing Bowl in the 3700 or 3800 block of Lyons Avenue where the appellant was holding Betty Young's yellow purse and the two were arguing. The appellant refused to give the purse back to Betty.
Testimony of the oral confession was introduced. Detective Smith testified that the appellant told him that he and the deceased had been in a beer joint at 3900 Lyons Avenue and that they had gone into a little house in an alleyway nearby and had sexual intercourse; that when they got outside the house the deceased told him that he did not love her and she then put her hand in his face; that he then lost his senses and knocked her down a couple of times in the alleyway. She then got up and ran. He caught up with her at the garden. He had on what he called a head or processing scarf, because he had had a treatment to his hair called a process job. He took off the scarf and choked her with it, knocked her into the garden, took her purse and left. He then told the officer that he tore the purse in half and threw one half in front of a house by a hedge and the other half upon the roof of a store.
Officer Smith further testified that the appellant stated that he had killed Betty Young and that the appellant showed him the garden where he stated he choked the deceased. The appellant then took him to a store with a sloping roof on the corner of Gregg and Market Streets. Officer Smith found half of a yellow purse nearby where apparently it could have fallen from the roof. That part of the purse had the name of the deceased on it and it was shown by the testimony that she had it with her on the night in question when it contained some $100.
In Warren v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 430 S.W.2d 215, this Court held:
In the establishment of the corpus delicti, confessions are not to be excluded, but are to be taken with other facts and circumstances in evidence. Whitaker v. State, 160 Tex.Cr.R. 271, 268 S.W.2d 172.
There was sufficient evidence to connect the appellant with the homicide and to support the conviction. See also Smith v. Texas, 329 F.2d 498 (5th Cir.).
The remaining question concerns the admissibility of the oral confession. The contention of the appellant is that he was coerced into making the confession.
The trial court held an extensive hearing out of the presence of the jury and found that the appellant was properly warned before the confession was made. The question of voluntariness was also submitted to the jury and was again answered adversely to the appellant.
Betty Young was found dead on the morning of June 12. Detective Smith testified that the appellant was questioned when he was not...
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