Ransonette v. State

• Decision Date: 06 October 1976
• Docket Number: No. 51550,51550
• Citation: 550 S.W.2d 36
• Parties: Franklin Joseph RANSONETTE, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee.
• Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

Page 36

550 S.W.2d 36

Franklin Joseph RANSONETTE, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee.

No. 51550.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.

Oct. 6, 1976.

Rehearing Denied May 3, 1977.

Melvyn Carson Bruder and Barry P. Helft, Dallas, for appellant.

Henry M. Wade, Dist. Atty., W. T. Westmoreland, Jr., Douglas D. Mulder and Jim Burnham, Asst. Dist. Attys., Dallas, Jim D. Vollers, State's Atty., David S. McAngus, Asst. State's Atty., Austin, for the State.

OPINION

BROWN, Commissioner.

This is an appeal from a conviction for kidnapping for extortion under Article 1177a, Vernon's Ann.P.C. Appellant and his brother Woodrow Ransonette were jointly tried before a jury which found them guilty and assessed punishment for each man at five thousand and five (5005) years in the Texas Department of Corrections. This Court affirmed the conviction of Woodrow Ransonette on April 30, 1975. Ransonette v. State, 522 S.W.2d 509, Appeal Dismissed, November 11, 1975, 423 U.S. 941, 96 S.Ct. 350, 46 L.Ed.2d 274.

Mrs. Amanda Mayhew Dealey testified that she returned to her apartment home in Dallas shortly after 5:00 p. m. on December 19, 1972. She stated that as she got out of her car in the parking lot behind the apartment complex she was met by two men, one of whom forced her at gunpoint into the front seat of a Chevrolet station wagon. She stated that as soon as she got into the car the men placed blacked-out glasses over her eyes so that she could not see. She said that she was driven to a vacant house where she was handcuffed and blindfolded with gauze and tape. She further testified that she was released unharmed by the kidnappers during the early morning hours of December 22 after her father-in-law, Joseph M. Dealey, Sr., paid a ransom of $250,000. She stated that she was left bound and blindfolded in tall grass near a dead-end street, but that she was able to wriggle out of her bindings and blindfold in time to see a white van with a "dark bluish stripe" leaving the scene. Mrs. Dealey positively identified Woodrow Ransonette as the man who forced her into the car and with whom she communicated throughout her ordeal. She was unable to identify appellant as one of her abductors because of her blindfold.

Joseph M. Dealey, Sr. testified as to his contact with the kidnappers concerning the ransom demands. He stated that he notified the police and that agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation entered into the case and that an Agent Brown later took over telephone communication with the kidnappers and eventually delivered the ransom.

Several employees of Southwestern Bell Telephone Company testified that they were involved in the tracing of phone calls originating from various exchanges in the Dallas area and terminating at the Dealey residence. It was established that most of the phone calls were originating from a group of public telephones in the area of Skillman Avenue at the intersection with Abrams Road.

Agents of the FBI testified that surveillance was set up in the Skillman Avenue area based on the information supplied by the telephone company employees. It was determined that the precise times of the kidnappers' telephone calls coincided with the appearance at the Skillman area telephones of a white 1971 Chevrolet van with a wide purple stripe. Photographs taken by the agents depict Woodrow Ransonette in one of the telephone booths with the white van parked nearby.

One of the agents positively identified Woodrow Ransonette as the man he saw get out of the van at one of the telephone booths. He also positively identified appellant as the driver of the van and stated that appellant stood "within a foot" of his brother during one of the kidnapper's telephone conversations with Agent Brown.

The State also introduced the testimony of a man who stated that he sold the station wagon used in the initial abduction, a 1963 Chevy II, to a man named Jerry Davis on December 19, 1972. The witness identified Woodrow Ransonette as the man who bought the car. Another witness testified that he rented a duplex to a man named Jerry Davis on December 19, 1972. This witness also identified Woodrow Ransonette as the man using the name of Jerry Davis. Mrs. Dealey testified that the duplex was the vacant residence where she was held captive. Another witness testified that he sold the white van to Franklin Ransonette.

The remainder of the evidence included testimony from various law enforcement officers about their involvement in the investigation of the case and circumstances surrounding the apprehension of the Ransonettes. It was developed that the license number on the van was traced to Franklin Ransonette. The van was found in the parking lot of a Dallas apartment house where Woodrow Ransonette resided. Officers knocked on the door of the apartment, identified themselves and were admitted. The Ransonettes were arrested, warned of their rights and searched. Woodrow executed a consent to search form and the apartment was searched. The $250,000 ransom, the blacked-out glasses and other evidence of the kidnapping were all found in the apartment. The officers testified that Woodrow made the spontaneous statement, "I told you we wasn't getting enough money. Now we're going to take the rap and I told you we were going to get caught."

We note at the outset that an examination of the record filed in this Court raises serious doubts as to whether or not the grounds of error raised in the briefs filed in appellant's behalf are properly before us under Article 40.09, Vernon's Ann.C.C.P. It appears that appellant's trial counsel was granted two extensions of time for filing of appellant's brief, but when no brief was filed, the careful trial judge appointed other counsel to represent appellant on appeal. Appellant then filed a motion with the court to dismiss the newly-appointed counsel. The trial court denied the motion and a brief was filed in appellant's behalf by the appointed counsel. We recently held that an accused has the right to represent himself both at trial and on appeal. Webb v. State, 533 S.W.2d 780 (Tex.Cr.App.1976). However, it appears that appellant in his two supplemental pro se briefs has adopted the brief of his appointed counsel. We will, therefore, review all eight grounds of error raised in the three briefs.

In his first ground of error appellant contends that the trial court erred in denying his request to have the court make an in camera inspection of the prosecutor's file to determine if it contained evidence favorable to the appellant.

A copy of the motion has been made a part of the record on appeal. It first requests the court "to permit the defense . . . to call the prosecuting attorney . . . as a witness . . . to determine whether (he) has in (his) possession" any statements of witnesses who were not to be called by the State or any physical or tangible objects or other evidence which "may have any relevance to the guilt or innocence" of the appellant or which "could be in anywise construed as favorable" to appellant on the issue of guilt or punishment.

The motion then requests that "in the event . . . any of the foregoing evidence or information exists," the court should order the State to produce such evidence for inspection. In the alternative, the motion requests the trial court to make an in camera inspection of the prosecuting attorney's entire file and to conduct an interrogation of the prosecutor "to determine if such evidence exists." The record does not contain a transcript of the hearing on this motion and the notation of the court's order on the copy of the motion is unclear; however, both appellant's brief and the State's brief state that the motion was denied.

In support of his contention that such denial was error, appellant relies on Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963) and Means v. State, 429 S.W.2d 490 (Tex.Cr.App.1968). The rule of law in those cases and a long line of subsequent decisions is that the suppression by the prosecution of evidence favorable to an accused violates due process where the evidence is material either to guilt or to punishment.

The standard to be applied in cases of suppression or nondisclosure of evidence by the State is whether the testimony may have had an effect on the outcome of the trial. Smith v. State, 516 S.W.2d 415 (Tex.Cr.App.1974). The key elements which must be shown are (a) suppression of evidence by the prosecution after a request by the defense, (b) the evidence's favorable character for the defense, and (c) the materiality of the evidence. Moore v. Illinois, 408 U.S. 786, 92 S.Ct. 2562, 33 L.Ed.2d 706 (1972).

Appellant has satisfied none of the above requirements. His motion, in effect, admits that he knows of no material evidence favorable to his defense. Rather, he merely wishes to rummage through the State's file to see if there is anything which may have any relevance to his guilt or innocence. We have previously held such a request too broad to be effective. Campos v. State, 468 S.W.2d 81 (Tex.Cr.App.1971); Bell v. State, 442 S.W.2d 716 (Tex.Cr.App.1969).

The United States Supreme Court most recently addressed the Brady v. Maryland rule in the case of United States v. Agurs, decided June 24, 1976, 427 U.S. 97, 96 S.Ct. 2392, 49 L.Ed.2d 342. There the Court noted that there was no significant difference between cases, such as the instant case, where there has been merely a general request for exculpatory matter and cases, such as Agurs in which there has been no request at all. Recognizing that there were situations where the evidence is obviously of such substantial material value to the defense that elementary fairness requires it to be disclosed even without a specific request, the Court stated that "the mere possibility that an item of undisclosed information might have helped the defense, or might have affected the outcome of the trial, does not establish 'materiality' in the constitutional...