Sandoval v. State, 27721
| Decision Date | 09 November 1955 |
| Docket Number | No. 27721,27721 |
| Citation | 162 Tex.Crim. 370,285 S.W.2d 222 |
| Parties | Salvador SANDOVAL, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee. |
| Court | Texas Court of Criminal Appeals |
F. G. Garza, Corpus Christi, for appellant.
Leon B. Douglas, State's Atty., Austin, for the State.
DICE, Commissioner.
The conviction is for rape; the punishment, life imprisonment.
Appellant was separately tried under an indictment in which he and six other codefendants were jointly charged with the offense of rape upon Betty Van Cleave, a woman, without her consent and by the use of force, threats and fraud.
The State's testimony shows that the prosecutrix and her companion, Randall Erekson, after attending a dance on Saturday night, around 1:45 o'clock on Sunday morning, drove to and parked on a road near a lake about two miles west of the town of Refugio. After they had been sitting in the car and talking for about fifteen minutes, five Mexican men, with handkerchiefs over their faces and two of whom had knives in their hands, appeared at the car. The men first tried to open the car doors and then told the couple to open them, one of the men telling the prosecutrix that if she did not open the door he would cut her throat. After the prosecutrix opened the door, one of the men reached in and pulled her out of the car. She was thereafter forced to take off her clothes and shoes after one of the men had put a knife to her throat. It is further shown that the prosecutrix was then wrapped in a blanket and carried by one of the men some distance behind the car and laid on the ground.
The prosecutrix testified that while on the ground the men had eight acts of sexual intercourse with her and that during such time a knife was put to her throat when she tried to raise up, and that the acts of intercourse were without her consent and forced upon her by threats of killing her and cutting her throat.
It is further shown that after the men had completed their assaults upon the prosecutrix she was carried back to the car where Erekson, her companion, had been held a captive by the men who took turns in guarding him; that during the time the men had cut the tires on the car and pulled the wires loose from the distributor and spark plugs.
After the men left, the prosecutrix and Erekson, being unable to start the car, walked to town, and Erekson, after the sheriff had been contacted, reported to him what had happened.
The prosecutrix testified that she identified the appellant on the following Thursday or Friday, while he was in custody of the sheriff, as one of the men who had raped her; and at the trial she also identified appellant as being one of the men who had raped her, testifying that the men had handkerchiefs over the lower part of their faces, and that her identification of the appellant was by his eyes and forehead and his build. Her companion, Erekson, testified that he was unable to identify appellant or any of the men as being the ones present at the car on the night in question.
The State offered in evidence the appellant's written confession in which he stated that he and certain companions, around one o'clock on the morning in question, drove out two miles west of Refugio and stopped in a pasture at the end of the road; that after the car had driven up and stopped five of them went to a parked car; that when he got out of the car he had his knife out and immediately opened the left door; that one of his companions pulled a woman out of the car and carried her out near some brush about 50 feet from the car; that with his knife out he watched the man in the car, and that after about thirty minutes he went to the brush and had intercourse with the woman.
We have not been favored with a brief from the appellant, but will discuss certain questions presented by the record and argued by the appellant's counsel before this court.
Appellant insists that he was indicted by an illegally constituted grand jury because of the action of the court in ordering the sheriff to summon one legally qualified grand juror to serve on the grand jury after it had been reassembled and one of the original twelve members failed to appear.
The record shows that before the grand jury had been ordered reassembled it had been discharged at a former date of the term.
Article 372, V.A.C.C.P., provides that a grand jury discharged by the court for the term may be reassembled by the court at any time during the term,...
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Singleton v. State
...juror, and this Court held that such procedure was authorized by Article 349, V.A.C.C.P. In the very recent case of Sandoval v. State, 1955, 162 Tex.Cr.R. 370, 285 S.W.2d 222, the same procedure was again approved. Anything appearing in Trevinio which might be construed as contrary to the c......
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Ritchie v. State, 28598
...made, and whether appellant understood and signed the same. Sanchez v. State, 155 Tex.Cr.R. 364, 235 S.W.2d 149; and Sandoval v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 285 S.W.2d 222. Finding no reversible error, the judgment is Opinion approved by the Court. ...
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