Fuller v. State, 38876

• Decision Date: 05 January 1966
• Docket Number: No. 38876,38876
• Citation: 397 S.W.2d 434
• Parties: Charles Dewayne FULLER, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee.
• Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

Page 434

397 S.W.2d 434

Charles Dewayne FULLER, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee.

No. 38876.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.

Jan. 5, 1966.

No attorney of record on appeal for appellant.

Henry Wade, Dist. Atty., Jim Miller, Jim Zimmermann and W. John Allison, Jr., Asst. Dist. Attys., Dallas, and Leon B. Douglas, State's Atty., Austin, for the State.

BELCHER, Commissioner.

The conviction is for murder; the punishment, fifty years.

This is a companion cause to Washington v. State, Tex.Cr.App., No. 33,873, dated January 5, 1966, not yet reported.

Jean Carter, age 17, testified that she began dating Jackie Washington in 1962, and after her mother objected they continued, which was unknown to her mother, and their last date was August 26, but they talked by telephone about 4 P.M., August 29; that she first met the deceased about three weeks before his death August 30, and frequently dated him; that they were together Saturday night, August 29, and returned home about midnight, parking his car in the driveway; that after they ate, she and her mother were doing some housework whild the deceased sat where he could be seen through the front door from the street; that about 2 A.M., August 30, they heard a noise and when the deceased went out on the porch he was shot; and they notified the police. The testimony of Jean's mother corroborates that of Jean as to the circumstances immediately surrounding the shooting.

A next-door neighbor of the Carters, Ruby Bynum, testified that about 5 P.M August 29, she saw Jackie Washington knock on the front door of the Carter house, slam the screen and go to the side door where he got no response and slammed it and returned to the front door where he repeated his acts, and as he was going to the side door again she spoke to him and he left the premises; that during this time he had an open knife in his hand; and that night she heard a shot and someone running, and then saw a man lying on Carters' front porch.

The testimony further reveals that shortly after 11 P.M., August 29, Jackie Washington, in his car, began trying to locate a shotgun, and after several boys had joined him they met the appellant who let him have his shotgun, and with seven in the car including the appellant they drove by the Carter home and saw the deceased who Washington said, had been 'messing with him' in the house, and they parked nearby. Washington told the boys to hit the car in the driveway with some bricks and 'when the guy came out he would get it.' Three of the boys threw bricks at the car and on returning to their car they heard a shot, and then Washington and appellant, who was carrying the gun, returned to the car. They...