Rainey v. State, 39138
| Decision Date | 09 March 1966 |
| Docket Number | No. 39138,39138 |
| Citation | 401 S.W.2d 606 |
| Parties | Tony Lee RAINEY, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee. |
| Court | Texas Court of Criminal Appeals |
Tom Upchurch, Jr., Amarillo, for appellant.
Dee D. Miller, Patrick H. Mulloy, Jr., Asst. Dist. Atty., Amarillo, and Leon B. Douglas, State's Atty., Austin, for the State.
The offense is assault with intent to rob; the punishment, five years confinement in the Texas Department of Corrections.
The corpus delicti was established through the testimony of the complaining witness, Sallie Ellis, and her husband, L. H. Ellis. Their testimony shows that two colored men entered their home in Potter County on the pretext of using the telephone, at about 10:25 p.m., on May 25, 1965. After the men were admitted to the home, both of the Ellis' were assaulted, with Mr. Ellis being knocked unconscious and Mrs. Ellis being beaten into a state of unconsciousness with the butt of a sawed-off shotgun. Sidney Vaughn, one of the perpetrators of the crime, admitted that the assault was committed with the intent to rob the Ellis', but that the money they expected to take could not be found.
Vaughn testified that he and state's witness, Linda Shell, left Ford's Cafe after nine p.m. and had gone about three or four blocks when they met appellant and coindictee Sammy Scott. After a brief conversation out of the presence of the Shell woman, the three men drove off in a pickup truck with appellant driving. Scott invited Vaughn to aid in the commission of a robbery, to which Vaughn assented, and the trio proceeded to the vicinity of the Ellis home. While Scott remained in the pickup, Vaughn and appellant went to the house at about 10:15 p.m., where Vaughn says he assaulted Mr. Ellis while appellant went into the room where Mrs. Ellis slept. After hearing the woman crying out, Vaughn saw appellant come out of her room, and appellant informed him that he had been unable to find the money. Both men fled on foot after they discovered that Scott had already left the scene in the pickup.
No other evidence directly places appellant at the scene of the crime. Mr. Ellis did not identify either assailant, and Mrs. Ellis identified Vaughn, and not appellant, as the one who beat her, and did not see the other intruder at all.
The state offered the following testimony to corroborate that of the accomplice witness, Vaughn.
Linda Shell corroborated Vaughn's testimony to the point where the three men left in the pickup at about 9:30 p.m.
Police Officers Ashby and Hellah established that they took appellant into custody at 10:40 p.m. about three blocks from the Ellis home as he was proceeding away from the scene of the offense. He appeared to be slowing down from a run, '* * * breathing hard enough so he couldn't talk smoothly; he had to stop and gasp and catch his breath while he was speaking,' and he vomited shortly after being taken into custody. Across the street in an underpass, a shotgun was found which had a damaged stock. A piece of wood found at the Ellis...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Paulus v. State
...guilt. Attwood v. State, 509 S.W.2d 342 (Tex.Cr.App.1974); Reynolds v. State, 489 S.W.2d 866 (Tex.Cr.App.1972); Rainey v. State, 401 S.W.2d 606 (Tex.Cr.App.1966); Washburn v. State, supra. Apparently insignificant circumstances sometimes afford most satisfactory evidence of guilt and corrob......
-
Mitchell v. State
...guilt. Attwood v. State, 509 S.W.2d 342 (Tex.Cr.App.1974); Reynolds v. State, 489 S.W.2d 866 (Tex.Cr.App.1972); Rainey v. State, 401 S.W.2d 606 (Tex.Cr.App.1966); Washburn v. State, supra. Apparently insignificant circumstances sometimes afford most satisfactory evidence of guilt and corrob......
-
Carrillo v. State, 57329
...sufficient in itself to establish guilt, Attwood v. State, 509 S.W.2d 342 (Tex.Cr.App.1974); Reynolds v. State, supra; Rainey v. State, 401 S.W.2d 606 (Tex.Cr.App.1966); it need only make the accomplice's testimony more likely than not. Warren v. State, 514 S.W.2d 458 The testimony and evid......
-
Aaron v. State, 51044
...liquor.' In Yeagin v. State, 400 S.W.2d 914 (Tex.Cr.App.1966), 'robbery by firearms' was reformed to 'robbery', and in Rainey v. State, 401 S.W.2d 606 (Tex.Cr.App.1966), the judgment read 'forgery' and based on the record before this Court was reformed to read 'assault with intent to rob.' ......