Loa v. State, 52871
| Decision Date | 26 January 1977 |
| Docket Number | No. 52871,52871 |
| Citation | 545 S.W.2d 837 |
| Parties | Carlos LOA, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee. |
| Court | Texas Court of Criminal Appeals |
KEITH, Commissioner.
Appellant was charged with the possession of a controlled substance; namely, heroin, and was found guilty by a jury which assessed his punishment at confinement for ten years.
The appeal is predicated upon two closely related grounds of error: (1) the evidence was insufficient to sustain the conviction since the prosecution depended exclusively upon the testimony of two accomplice witnesses whose testimony was not corroborated; and (2) the mere presence of appellant was insufficient to corroborate the testimony of the accomplice witnesses. We agree and reverse the judgment of conviction and remand the cause for a new trial for the reasons now to be stated.
Victoria Detective Carl Bellis, accompanied by other police officers (none of whom testified), went to the residence of Manuel Gonzales and Mary Luna on E. Power Street in Victoria. Bellis testified that when he entered the house he saw appellant standing in the bedroom with his hands upon the wall in an arrest posture, that he went into the kitchen where he found Mary Luna. He noticed a glass jar, a hypodermic syringe, and a bottle cap on the kitchen table near where Luna was standing. The glass jar contained several small packages wrapped in foil. Manuel Gonzales, the common law husband of Mary Luna, was in the bedroom with appellant when Bellis entered the house.
Appellant, Gonzales and Luna were arrested and taken to the police station where a matchbox containing heroin was found in Luna's brassiere. The State showed, without objection, that it was heroin in the jar and in the matchbox.
Gonzales testified that he and Luna resided in the house and that appellant had come there to stay only a few days earlier, that appellant had the heroin and gave him and Luna several 'fixes' in payment of his rent or for the privilege of staying in the house. He also said that Luna had given appellant the glass jar in which the heroin was found, that the contraband had been secreted outside the house each night that appellant stayed with them, that early on the morning of the arrest he went outside and brought the jar and its contents into the house where he and appellant both had an injection. They then went to sleep and were awakened when the officers arrived between 8:30 and 9:00 in the morning.
Gonzales readily admitted that he had pleaded guilty to the possession of heroin on the occasion in question only the day before he gave his testimony and that while he had not been sentenced, he was hopeful 'that the...
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Paulus v. State
...Etheredge v. State, 542 S.W.2d 148 (Tex.Cr.App.1976); Nelson v. State, 542 S.W.2d 175 (Tex.Cr.App.1976); Loa v. State, 545 S.W.2d 837 (Tex.Cr.App.1977); Dillard v. State, 550 S.W.2d 45 (Tex.Cr.App.1977). All the facts and circumstances in evidence may be looked to as furnishing the corrobor......
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Deckard v. State
...at his residence. Therefore, he contends, there is no accomplice witness. In support of his argument, he cites Loa v. State, 545 S.W.2d 837 (Tex. Crim. App. 1977). In Loa, there were two accomplice witnesses as a matter of law. See Loa, 545 S.W.2d at 839. In the undisputed record, however, ......