Holladay v. State, 01-82-00753-CR
| Decision Date | 13 December 1984 |
| Docket Number | No. 01-82-00753-CR,01-82-00753-CR |
| Citation | 682 S.W.2d 434 |
| Parties | Robert Lee HOLLADAY, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee. (1st Dist.) |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
Donald W. Rogers, Jr., Houston, for appellant.
John B. Holmes, Jr., Harris County Dist. Atty., Rory C. Flynn, J. Gordon Dees, Harris County Asst. Dist. Attys., Houston, for appellee.
Before WARREN, COHEN and LEVY, JJ.
Appellant was convicted of capital murder for the death of Paul Joehlin in the course of robbing him, and the jury assessed punishment at confinement for life.
Appellant does not challenge the sufficiency of the evidence, which showed that the robbery of Joehlin was committed by appellant and his accomplices, Beverly Glock, Michael Keane, and Michael Kaiser. Glock, a neighbor of Joehlin, often cleaned Joehlin's apartment and contrived to do that act as part of the robbery scheme. Approximately twenty minutes later, the other accomplices pretended to be looking for her, and once inside his apartment, Michael Keane knocked Joehlin to the ground while the others robbed him.
Michael Keane and the appellant then caused the gruesome death of Joehlin by hitting him with a bottle, repeatedly stabbing him with a knife, and puncturing him with a meat fork. All of the accomplices were charged with capital murder. Kaiser became a State's witness against the appellant in exchange for a guilty plea on aggravated robbery.
Appellant brings only one ground of error, alleging that the trial court erroneously overruled his objection to the court's charge at the guilt phase of the trial. He asserted that the court inadequately instructed the jury on the law of accomplice testimony in capital murder cases.
Kaiser, having admitted to being one of the parties primarily responsible for the death of Joehlin during the robbery, was an accomplice witness as a matter of law. Kerns v. State, 550 S.W.2d 91, 94 (Tex.Crim.App.1977); Hendricks v. State, 508 S.W.2d 633, 634 (Tex.Crim.App.1974).
Tex.Code Crim.P.Ann. art. 38.14 (Vernon 1966) provides that:
A conviction cannot be had upon the testimony of an accomplice unless corroborated by other evidence tending to connect the defendant with the offense committed; and the corroboration is not sufficient if it merely shows the commission of the offense.
The court instructed the jury on the law with respect to Kaiser's accomplice testimony as follows:
The witness, MICHAEL VINCENT KAISER, is an accomplice, if an offense was committed, and you cannot convict the Defendant upon his testimony unless you first believe that his testimony is true and shows that the Defendant is guilty as charged, and then you cannot convict the Defendant upon said testimony unless you further believe that there is other testimony in the case, outside of the evidence of the said MICHAEL VINCENT KAISER, tending to connect the Defendant with the offense committed, if you find that an offense was committed, and the corroboration is not sufficient if it merely shows the commission of the offense, but it must tend to connect the Defendant with its commission, and then from all of the evidence you must believe beyond a reasonable doubt that the Defendant is guilty of the offense charged against him.
An accomplice, as the term is here used, means any person connected...
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Holladay v. State
...to accomplice testimony in capital murder cases," and reversed the trial court's judgment and sentence. See Holladay v. State, 682 S.W.2d 434 (Tex.App.--Houston [1st] 1985). This Court held in both County and Fortenberry, supra, that if a conviction for the offense of capital murder may be ......