Johnson v. State
| Decision Date | 01 April 1964 |
| Docket Number | No. 36699,36699 |
| Citation | 379 S.W.2d 329 |
| Parties | Raymond Bernard JOHNSON, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee. |
| Court | Texas Court of Criminal Appeals |
Maurice Amidei, Fort Worth (Court-appointed for appeal only), for appellant.
Doug Crouch, Dist. Atty., Albert F. Fick, Jr., and R. J. Adcock, Asst. Dist. Attys., Fort Worth, and Leon B. Douglas, State's Atty., Austin, for the State.
The offense is robbery; the punishment, 15 years.
The indictment was in two counts, the first alleging robbery with firearms and the second robbery.
The original indictment is before us. A printed form for indictment for robbery with firearms was used for the first count.
The appellant seeks to treat the portion of the second count of the indictment and the constitutionally required conclusion, 'against the peace and dignity of the state,' as not being a part of the indictment because it is upon a separate sheet attached by tape to the remainder of the indictment.
No authority is cited to sustain such contention.
The trial court found no merit in appellant's contention in this regard and neither do we.
The evidence reflects that about 9:30 the night of January 4, 1963, appellant and a companion, Cecil Dean Hart, after being served in the dining room of Holiday Inn Motel, Located in Fort Worth, Texas, walked to the cashier, Mrs. Donna Harless, and presented their ticket as though they were going to pay their bill. Instead of giving her any money, Hart pointed a gun toward Mrs. Harless. While Hart unsuccessfully attempted to get the dining room cash register open, appellant proceeded into the lobby where he approached Miss Dean Morris, the desk clerk, and at gun point told her to step back and be quiet and not to touch the telephone or she would get hurt. Appellant, who unsuccessfully attempted to open the registration desk cash register, removed $270.00 to $280.00 therefrom after Miss Morris opened the drawer upon his demand.
The police, upon their arrival at the Holiday Inn, were given a description as to the color and make of the get away car and of its occupants, by Will Sharien, a porter who had watched the departure from a window.
R. F. Canfield, a patrolman for the Texas Department of Public Safety, having received a report of the robbery and a description of the get away car and its occupants, observed such a car and followed and stopped it.
The driver, who proved to be Cecil Dean Hart, got out and came to the patrol car. He had an empty holster inside his trousers and a loaded snubnose pistol in his pocket.
The second occupant of the stopped car drove it away.
Other officers who received information by radio attempted to stop the vehicle. They pursued it for some 40 miles, at speeds up to 100 miles per hour. The chase ended with officers finding it wrecked near Jacksboro. There was blood on the steering wheel and front seat, and a .32 caliber H & R Pistol on the front seat. The driver was not located that night.
The appellant was apprehended the following morning some 10 or 12 miles from the wrecked car, after a foot race across a pasture. A .38 caliber hammerless Smith and Wesson Pistol was found in the pocket of the top coat he was wearing. Except for its serial number this pistol matched the pistol taken from Cecil Dean Hart. When apprehended, the appellant had injuries on his face which he told the officers he received in a car wreck.
Both Hart and the appellant were identified by Donna Harless in a police line up, and the appellant was identified by said Donna Harless and other witnesses as one of the two men who came to the Holiday Inn Wearing top coats and committed the acts stated.
Dean Morris, named in the indictment as the victim of the robbery, identified the appellant as the man who produced a pistol and removed the money from the cash register after she opened the drawer, upon his demand. She testified that she was scared.
Two attorneys represented the appellant at his trial.
The statement of facts contains numerous informal bills of exception they perfected.
Sentence was pronounced on July 29, 1963, and notice of appeal given in open court was incorporated therein.
On September 4, 1963, the trial court entered order appointing Honorable Maurice Amidei, practicing attorney of the Fort Worth Bar, to represent the appellant and perfect his appeal to this Court.
The order recites that appellant's trial attorney had requested and been granted permission to withdraw from the case at bar and that the defendant was unable to secure counsel.
The statement of facts and bills of exception are properly before us. There is no showing in the record when the two attorneys who represented the appellant at his trial withdrew or why they withdrew, and no showing that the appellant was prejudiced in the matter or denied the right to counsel on appeal.
More than 20 bills of exception are presented by counsel appointed by the court to represent the appellant on appeal, and many...
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