Jackson v. State

• Decision Date: 15 April 1974
• Docket Number: No. CR,CR
• Citation: 256 Ark. 406,507 S.W.2d 705
• Parties: Sammy S. JACKSON, Appellant, v. STATE of Arkansas, Appellee. 73--152.
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

Page 705

507 S.W.2d 705

256 Ark. 406

Sammy S. JACKSON, Appellant, v. STATE of Arkansas, Appellee.

No. CR 73--152.

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

April 15, 1974.

John O. Moore of Tackett, Moore, Dowd & Harrelson, Texarkana, for appellant.

Jim Guy Tucker, Atty. Gen. by O. H. Hargraves, Deputy Atty. Gen., Little Rock, for appelle.

FOGLEMAN, Justice.

Sammy S. Jackson asks us to reverse his conviction of robbery on two grounds. He first contends there is not sufficient corroboration of witnesses who testified to facts which would make them accomplices. We find the corroborating evidence sufficient.

About 11:00 a.m. on November 25, 1972, two men wearing ski masks robbed Kenneth Satterfield and others in the office of Satterfield Oil Company in Texarkana. One of the robbers brandished a pistol during the robbery. The two robbers, after causing Satterfield and the others to lie on the floor, walked directly into the room where Satterfield kept money.

James Andrews, after having pleaded guilty to the robbery, testified against Jackson. He implicated Jackson by relating substantially the following:

Andrews had been paroled from the penitentiary to Jackson in October, 1972, and had been employed by Jackson at the Handy-Dandy Service Station up until the time of the robbery. Jackson and Andrews went to Pine Bluff the night before the robbery to pick up Ollis Heard, who also participated in the robbery. Heard and Andrews spent the night in a motel in Texarkana, where Jackson picked them up the next morning and took them by a store at which Andrews bought three 'stocking' or ski masks, later worn during the robbery. Jackson then took Heard and Andrews to the back of the Satterfield Oil Company building, and gave Andrews a .38 caliber pistol but stayed in his truck while Andrews and Heard robbed Satterfield and the others in the place. When Andrews and Heard left, they went through a wooded section toward a road where they were to meet Jackson. They did not find Jackson at the appointed place. They buried the masks, a shirt worn by Andrews, the money and the pistol in the woods. Jackson had told Andrews where the money was kept by Satterfield and that Satterfield carried large sums on his person. Later Andrews went to the Handy-Dandy Station. He changed his clothing, and was subsequently arrested there.

Ollis Heard, who was arrested before he left the woods, for the most part corroborated the testimony of Andrews as to what took place prior to his own arrest. Heard stated he was with Jackson prior to 1967 when Jackson bought the pistol given to Andrews just before the robbery. Heard also testified Jackson had planned the robbery, had discussed it with him two or three times and had told him where the money would be.

A. P. Miller testified that the records of the House of Guns, at which he had been employed by his father-in-law Van Tittle, who died in 1968, disclosed that the pistol, a .38 caliber Smith and Wesson, had been sold to a Samuel L. Jackson on December 12, 1966.

Of course, the evidence in corroboration of an accomplice must tend, independently, to connect the accused with the commission of the offense. Ark.Stat.Ann. § 43--2116 (Repl.1964). The use of the pistol owned by Jackson had some tendency, standing alone, to connect Jackson with the offense. The circumstances here are decidedly different from those in Cockrell v. State (1974), 256 Ark. ---, 505 S.W.2d 204, the latest case in which we found the corroborating testimony to be insufficient. In that case, there was no evidence that the defendant's automobile, in which the stolen property was found, had been used in the burglary and larceny, and there was evidence that the alleged accomplice, who had been apprehended while driving the automobile, had considerable freedom in the use of it over some period of time. This case more nearly resembles Shipp v. State, 241 Ark. 120, 406 S.W.2d 361, in which the fact that the defendant, on the day before a robbery was committed, had purchased the clothing worn by the person committing it, was held to be sufficient corroboration. But we have held that evidence of a defendant's ownership of a motor vehicle used in a larceny is insufficient corroboration. Pitts v. State, 247 Ark. 434, 446 S.W.2d 222. However, there is more here.

Jackson had been employed by Satterfield to operate the Handy-Dandy Station. He had been in the Satterfield office on numerous occasions to bring money received in the operation of that station. Philip Burkhalter, a deputy sheriff investigating the robbery a short time after it occurred, found Jackson about three-fourths of a mile from the oil company in a pickup truck. When asked what he was doing there, Jackson said that he was looking for some horses.

It has been well established that corroboration may be by circumstantial evidence. Jones v. State, 254 Ark. 769, 496 S.W.2d 423; King v. State, 254 Ark. 509, 494 S.W.2d 476. Presence of an accused in proximity to the crime, opportunity, association with persons involved in a manner suggesting joint participation and possession of instruments used in the commission of the offense are relevant facts in determining the sufficiency of the corroboration. State v. Mathiasen, 267 Minn. 393, 127 N.W.2d 534 (1964); Cawley v. State, 166 Tex.Cr.R. 37, 310 S.W.2d 340 (1957); Moore v. State, 30 Ala.App. 304, 5 So.2d 644 (1941). All these pertinent factors weighed collectively, instead of merely raising a suspicion of defendant's guilt, do constitute substantial circumstantial evidence tending to connect him with the crime.

The second point for reversal relates to procedures substantially identical with those followed by the court in Martin v. State, 254 Ark. 1065, 497 S.W.2d 268, and Carter and Burkhead v. State (1973), 255 Ark. ---, 500 S.W.2d 368, where the trial judge, prosecuting attorney and defense counsel...