Jones v. State
Decision Date | 25 June 1974 |
Docket Number | 8 Div. 469 |
Citation | 54 Ala.App. 167,306 So.2d 33 |
Parties | William Wiley JONES and Bobby Lee Weatherford v. STATE. |
Court | Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals |
William J. Baxley, Atty. Gen., Montgomery, Roger M. Monroe, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., Birmingham, for the State, appellee.
The Grand Jury of Lawrence County, Alabama, charged William Wiley Jones, Bobby Lee Weatherford, and also Billy Lee Bastin, with the altering, forging, or counterfeiting of 'a twenty dollar Federal Reserve Note, drawn or purportedly drawn on the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Check Letter B, Face Plate 152, Back Plate 133, Series 1969B, Serial Number H34906139A; or with intent to injure or defraud did utter and publish as true the said falsely altered, forged,' etc.
After a full explanation of the legal consequences, the appellants, Jones and Weatherford, each, separately, and their attorneys, did agree to a joint trial of this cause. The Jury brought in separate verdicts, each of which found the appellant guilty as charged. The trial court then entered separate judgments in which each of these two appellants, Jones and Weatherford, was sentenced to eighteen years imprisonment in the penitentiary.
On February 22, 1973, between 10:30 and 11:00 a.m., Mrs. Frances Zills, a clerk at Clark-Freeman's Department Store in Moulton, Alabama, sold two men's shirts to a man, whom she later identified as one Billy Lee Bastin. She stated that Bastin paid her with a 'different looking' twenty dollar bill. She stated that she placed the two shirts in a Clark Freeman shopping bag; that she also placed the sales slip inside the bag. One of the shirts was a shade of blue, and the other was tan. She stated that within ten or fifteen minutes of making this sale, Deputy Sheriff Kenneth Brown and one Parnell Lovett, a Federal ATU Agent, entered the store. After identifying themselves as law enforcement officers, she showed the twenty dollar bill to them. From the record:
'Q. And I believe you said this was a Thursday?
'A. Yes, sir.
'Q. The best that you can recall?
'A. It was a Thursday morning.
'Q. Okay. I believe you said that ten to fifteen minutes transpired from the time that you made the sale until the time that you saw Mr. Parnell and Mr. Brown; is that correct?
'A. Yes, sir.
'Q. This Twenty Dollar Bill I believe you said that looked different or something to you, you went ahead and put it in the cash register, did you not?
'A. Yes, sir. Before I put it in the register, I showed it to Mrs. Hazel, and I told her, I said, 'This money doesn't look like our other money.' But I had no way of knowing the money wasn't right. I just showed it to her and I still didn't know that the money wasn't, you know, like it should be. So I asked her, I said, 'What do you think about it?''
Auxiliary Deputy Sheriff Kenneth Brown testified that he was standing in a grocery store near the Clark-Freeman's Store and observed the appellant Jones sitting in a green 1965 Chevrolet automobile with a Tennessee license plate. He testified that Jones appeared to be very nervous, that he saw Bastin get out of the automobile, go into the store, then return in just a few minutes with a shopping bag. He stated that he had been watching the car in question for some time before Bastin entered the store. He stated that he saw Bastin get into the car with appellant Jones, and that he wrote down the tag number of the vehicle. He stated that neither he nor Federal ATU Agent Parnell Lovett saw anyone else go in out of the Clark-Freeman's Store, and that within a few minutes they both entered the store, and Mrs. Zills exhibited the twenty dollar bill in question to them. He noticed that the twenty dollar bill was different in color and texture from other twenty dollar bills. He stated that the officers then gave a description of the men and the Chevrolet automobile over the two-way sheriff's radio. Deputy Brown further testified that he went before Intermediate Court Judge Cecil Caine, Jr., for a search warrant.
The affidavit is as follows:
LAWRENCE COUNTY.
'Before me, C. B. Caine, Jr., Judge of the Intermediate Court of Lawrence County, Alabama, personally appeared Kenneth Brown, who, being by me first duly sworn, deposes and says that he is an Auxiliary Deputy for the Lawrence County Sheriff's Department and that he, individually, and as such officer, has probable cause to believe and has reason to believe and does believe that certain altered, forged, or counterfeited twenty dollar Federal Reserve notes or twenty dollar bills are concealed or stored in the trunk, under the seats, in the glove compartment, in the floorboard, or elsewhere in one 1965 green Chevrolet automobile bearing a 1972 Tennessee tag number 89--C539, presently parked in the Lawrence County Sheriff's parking lot behind the Lawrence County Jail. Affiant basses his information and belief on the following facts:
'That at or around 10:30 on February 22, 1973 affiant stopped at the Value Mart in Moulton, Alabama and went into see his wife who manages the store. At the time affiant observed a man with reddish brown bushy hair, wearing a brown colored coat and dark glasses, sitting in a 1965 green Chevrolet automobile across the street from the Value Mart. Affiant's attention was attracted to this man because he appeared to be nervous. Affiant continued to observe this man for an hour and fifteen minutes from inside the Value Mart. The man affiant was watching moved his car and parked it in front of the Value Mart next to affiant's wife's automobile. During all of this time affiant observed the man drinking out of a cup. The man continued to act in an abnormal and nervous manner and continuously looked around in every direction. Affiant crossed the street and wrote down the man's tag number. It was a 1972 Tennessee license plate number 89--C539. Affiant went back to the store and advised his wife that he was going to the Sheriff's Department and check this tag and further advised his wife to continue to observe the man and to lock the door if he got out of his car and started toward the Value Mart. Affiant then proceeded to the Lawrence County Sheriff's office and met Parnell Lovett, an agent for the Federal Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Division. Affiant and Lovett proceeded back to the store. Affiant's wife informed them that while he was gone the bushy haired man in dark glasses, whom they had been watching, got out of the Chevrolet automobile and walked into Clark-Freeman's Department Store across the street and down the block and that the man came out in a few minues carrying a package that was about the size of two shirts. Affiant's wife advised affiant that the man then proceeded back to the aforesaid Chevrolet automobile and got in. Affiant and Lovett observed the man still in the automobile and then went back to the Sheriff's Department and changed automobiles. When affiant and Lovett returned, they parked south of the Value Mart in the next block where they could observe the Chevrolet automobile. Affiant observed the man he had been watching cross the street from the Piggly-Wiggly parking lot and get into the Chevrolet automobile and start to pull off. At this time affiant observed a second man sitting next to the driver in the Chevrolet automobile. The Chevrolet automobile passed through the first red light, passed the Court House, and turned right at the second red light. Affiant and Lovett turned right at the Town House Restaurant so that both automobiles were proceeding in an easterly direction. Affiant and Lovett turned left at the next intersection and stopped at the red light on the southeastern corner of the square. At this time they observed the aforesaid Chevrolet automobile meeting them at the red light. Also, at this time affiant observed that the second man, who was the passenger in the Chevrolet automobile, had disappeared. Affiant and Lovett then proceeded to Clark-Freeman's Department Store, went in, and met Maxie Zills, the clerk on duty. Mrs. Zills advised affiant and Lovett that a man with bushy reddish brown hair and wearing a brownish colored jacket and dark glasses and otherwise matching the description of the man affiant had been observing had just purchased two men's shirts and had given her a twenty dollar bill in payment for said shirts and she had given him change. Mrs. Zills identified the twenty dollar bill that the man had given her and presented it to affiant. Mrs. Zills was certain that the bill in question was the bill presented to her by the man in question because it was the last twenty dollar bill she had accepted and she remembered putting it on the top of the twenty dollar bills in the cash drawer and that the man in question was the last customer who had purchased anything. Upon observing the bill affiant determined that it was an obvious counterfeit twenty dollar bill proposing to be legal tender of the United States of America. Although similar to an authentic bill, the bill in question was not of the same obvious color, texture and did not have all of the authentic markings. Affiant then proceeded to the Value Mart and his wife advised him that, after affiant and Lovett left the Value Mart the last time, she observed the man in question leave the Chevrolet automobile, proceed across the street to the Piggly-Wiggly parking lot and get into a bluish gray Lincoln automobile with another man and that after a few minutes the man in question returned to the Chevrolet automobile, got in and left. With this information affiant and Lovett proceeded back to the jail and gave this information to the Sheriff's office. The description and tag number of the automobile was broadcast over police radio together with information that the above-described individual in the above-described automobile was suspected of passing...
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