Hawkins v. State

• Decision Date: 04 June 1974
• Docket Number: 8 Div. 520
• Parties: Roy Lee HAWKINS v. STATE.
• Court: Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals

Page 813

297 So.2d 813

53 Ala.App. 89

Roy Lee HAWKINS v. STATE.

8 Div. 520.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Alabama.

June 4, 1974.

Rehearing Denied June 25, 1974.

Winston V. Legge, Jr., Athens, for appellant.

William J. Baxley, Atty. Gen., J. Knox Argo, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., Montgomery, for the State.

HARRIS, Judge.

Appellant was convicted of robbery and sentenced to ten (10) years imprisonment in the penitentiary. With counsel present at arraignment, he pleaded not guilty. After conviction he sought and obtained a free transcript of the evidence and trial counsel was appointed to represent him on appeal.

The victim was a seventy-three (73) year-old man whose eye sight was impaired to the point that he was forced to wear eye glasses. He claimed he only needed glasses when reading and had no difficulty seeing at a distance.

According to the victim, the robbery occurred during the daylight hours in the late afternoon of May 30, 1973. He heard someone knocking or kicking on his front door saying, 'Open up your door', and 'Give me that money.' He told the man he was not going to open the door until he knew who was there. The victim further testified that he recognized the voice of the person at his door and he chastised him for wanting to break into the house and rob a seventy-three year-old man. He said the man at the door was appellant and he made an in-court identification.

He said the man kept kicking on the door and broke a place in the door. He decided to slip out the back door and he got his billfold and a small hatchet as he was leaving. When he got outside he started to throw his billfold in some weeds but heard someone running behind him and he started to run toward a freshly plowed cotton field nearby and he was hit in the left side with a big rock thrown by appellant. The blow knocked him down but he got up immediately. The appellant started hitting him with a two-by-six (2 6) plank that had been in the victim's wood pile. He said he was struck on his arms and in the temple. The blow to the temple dazed him and he was unable to keep appellant from taking his billfold. After taking the billfold, appellant ran from the scene and across the newly plowed ground. He told the officers that the man who robbed him was searing dark clothes and boots.

Appellant was arrested later that night for driving while under the influence of intoxicating liquors and committed to jail. At the time of his arrest, the officers did not know about the alleged robbery. The sheriff and other officers were searching for appellant on the robbery complaint when they learned he was in jail.

The victim was somewhat hazy about a lot of details as to his acquaintance with appellant during the years and as to the frequency that they came in contact with each other. However, he withstood a vigorous cross-examination as to his identity of the accused both by sight and by voice.

The Sheriff of Limestone County took active charge of the robbery investigation and visited the scene the next day. The victim pointed out to him the place where he was hit with the rock and where he was knocked out by the two-by-six plank. The sheriff took photographs of the scene as well as the door showing that it was kicked three times with a shoe or boot and the door had mud on it. The photographs were received in evidence without objections. The rock was also admitted in evidence without an objection.

The sheriff interviewed appellant in the jail around 11:00 A.M. on the day after the alleged robbery. He gave him the Miranda rights and warnings and he signed a waiver of counsel form and gave and executed a written statement. The waiver of counsel form was admitted in evidence. The signed statement was not introduced in evidence but it is clear from the record that appellant did not confess the crime or make an admission against his interest.

When the sheriff visited the scene he observed footprints going in a northerly direction from the place where the victim said he was knocked down, and he returned to the jail and got the boots that appellant was wearing at the time of his arrest. He placed the boots in the shoe prints and testified that the boots fit the shoe prints without any pressure being applied on the boots. The boots were admitted in evidence without objection. Moore v. State, 4 Ala.App. 65, 59 So. 189; Green v. State, 42 Ala.App. 439, 167 So.2d 694, certiorari denied, 277 Ala. 698, 167 So.2d 701.

Appellant and his witnesses testified to an alibi. Except in a few isolated instances involving the time element, his alibi, if true, tended to show he could not have been involved. He had a strong alibi.

In Willcutt v. State, 284 Ala. 547, 226 So.2d 328, the Supreme Court said:

'The scintilla rule does not apply in criminal cases. There must be substantial evidence tending to prove all the elements of the charge. Ex parte Grimmett, 228 Ala. 1, 152 So. 263. The burden is on the State to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the crime has been committed and that the defendant was the person who committed it. Jarrell v. State, 251 Ala. 50, 36 So.2d 336. The weight of the evidence, the credibility of the witnesses, and inferences to be drawn from the evidence, where susceptible of more than one rational conclusion, are for the jury alone. Byrd v. State, 213 Ala. 333, 104 So. 830.

'We cannot say in the instant case that there was not enough evidence to allow the jury to draw the inference that the defendant was the person who committed this robbery. The defendant presented a strong case in support of his alibi. The testimony of his witnesses was in direct conflict with the testimony of the State's witness. Yet the State's witness made a positive identification of defendant as the person who robbed and burned him. The State presented substantial evidence and the jury had before it an adequate basis for drawing inferences and conclusions against the defendant. It is for the jury, not the trial court or this court, to find the facts and to determine guilt or innocence. The State presented sufficient evidence upon which the jury could base its verdict.'

The state's case was strong enough to submit the issue of guilt to the jury for its determination. Where there is legal evidence from which the jury can by fair inference find the defendant guilty, this court has no right to disturb the verdict. Whether there is such evidence is a question of law, its weight and probative value are for the jury. Bolton v. State, 21 Ala.App. 373, 108 So. 631; Haggler v. State, 49 Ala.App. 259, 270 So.2d 690.

From what we have said the court did not err in overruling appellant's motion to exclude the state's evidence. Nor did the court commit reversible error...