Murdoch v. State
| Decision Date | 09 December 1970 |
| Docket Number | No. 43257,43257 |
| Citation | 460 S.W.2d 423 |
| Parties | Andrew F. MURDOCH, Gale Stewart, Janice West, Larry West and Andrew L. Winsor, Appellants, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee. |
| Court | Texas Court of Criminal Appeals |
Branch T. Archer, Amarillo, for Murdoch.
Otho Miller, Amarillo, for Gale Stewart.
V. G. Kolius, Amarillo, for Janice and Larry West.
Charles Wittenberry, Amarillo, for Winsor.
Tom Curtis, Dist. Atty., and John B. Reese, Asst. Dist. Atty., Amarillo, and Jim D. Vollers, State's Atty., Austin, for the State.
The conviction was for the substantive offense of conspiracy to commit the crime of theft; the punishment assessed each appellant, five (5) years, probated.
Appellants were jointly indicted and tried.
The sufficiency of the evidence is challenged.
These convictions arose from the following sequence of events. Gary Don Bennett appeared at a motorcycle club in Amarillo and with his new 'Firebird' automobile, his leather clothes, his 'full dresser motorcycle,' his tales of personal business success in California and his lavish expenditures on food and drink for the appellants, impressed the appellants--all members of the motorcycle club. He offered appellants lucrative positions with his California company--Bennett Breaking Company--and as an inducement to accept his offer he agreed to advance appellants payments on their salaries. Checks were drawn on an account in the name of the Bennett Breaking Company and made out to appellants. Thereafter, appellants cashed such checks and returned the proceeds of the checks to Bennett. Bennett then gave the money to Cameile Self, a woman shown to have been living with him at the time, in order that she would hold the money to insure that appellants would accompany Bennett to California, as agreed, and to pay the expenses of the trip from Amarillo to California.
Cameile Self was an accomplice witness, having shared in the proceeds of the checks which she testified she knew was 'illegal money.' Kirkendall v. State, 132 Tex.Cr.R. 104, 102 S.W.2d 214; Odom v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 438 S.W.2d 912. Corroboration of her testimony is therefore essential to sustain appellants' convictions. Barnes v. State, 158 Tex.Cr.R. 93, 253 S.W.2d 440.
In Smith v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 363 S.W.2d 277, this Court held that a conspiracy conviction could not be sustained on the strength of the accused's confession where, as here, the only evidence in the record (other than the evidence to be...
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