Lancaster v. State

• Decision Date: 16 January 1918
• Docket Number: (No. 4752.)
• Citation: 200 S.W. 167
• Parties: LANCASTER v. STATE.
• Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

200 S.W. 167

LANCASTER v. STATE.

(No. 4752.)

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.

January 16, 1918.

Appeal from District Court, Milam County; John Watson, Judge.

J. F. Lancaster was convicted of robbery, and appeals. Reversed and remanded.

J. H. Evetts, of Temple, and Chambers & Wallace, all of Cameron, for appellant. E. B. Hendricks, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

DAVIDSON, P. J.

Appellant was convicted of robbery; his punishment being assessed at six years' confinement in the penitentiary.

The state's case, in brief, is that appellant and another party, in the town of Cameron, Milam county, committed robbery upon the person of Dave Watson. It was at night near the Santa Fé depot. The two parties who the witnesses testify committed the robbery upon them were identified by such facts and circumstances and descriptions as the two parties could give, they all being strangers to each other. From one of the parties was taken some money and a pocketknife described in a particular way. Later on, and during the same night, the appellant and his companion were arrested, and on the person of appellant was found a knife which was identified by one of the parties who claimed to have been robbed near the Santa Fé depot. It is unnecessary to go into a detailed statement of these two witnesses. They gave as accurate description as perhaps they could have done under the circumstances of the two parties they claimed to have held them up. Later during the same evening, between the time of the alleged robbery at the Santa Fé depot and their arrest, two other parties were introduced as witnesses, claiming also to have been held up by two men and robbed. This was something like a half hour after the first alleged robbery. This evidence was introduced over the objection of appellant, as being an independent offense and in no way connected with the first alleged robbery. Various objections were urged and overruled, and after the testimony had been introduced appellant again urged by a written charge that the testimony be withdrawn from the jury. It is unnecessary to take up these different grounds of objection and reasons assigned. The court seems to have admitted it upon the theory of identity. We are of opinion that the evidence was not introducible upon such theory under the facts of the case. The two robberies were in no way connected with each other, and the fact the second robbery occurred did not serve to identify these parties as the parties who committed the first robbery. There was no fact or circumstance which undertook to connect the two transactions, except the fact that they occurred on the same night, and that there was evidence showing some similarity in the appearance of the two robbers in both cases. This did not serve to identify appellant as being the robber in the first instance. This matter has been the subject of quite a number of decisions, and it is not the purpose here to review the...