Trissell v. State

Decision Date29 May 1987
Docket NumberNo. F-84-836,F-84-836
Citation737 P.2d 1228
PartiesTimothy William TRISSELL, Appellant, v. STATE of Oklahoma, Appellee.
CourtUnited States State Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma. Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma
OPINION

BUSSEY, Judge:

The appellant, Timothy William Trissell, was convicted of the crime of Burglary in the Second Degree, After Former Conviction of a Felony, in the District Court of Beckham County, in Case No. CRF-84-8 and was sentenced to twenty (20) years' imprisonment, and he appeals.

On January 7, 1984, when Dottie Burns returned home from bowling, she noticed that the back door of her house was open. She thought she had locked the door before she left as locking the door is a standard procedure with her. She then closed and locked the back door since she was about to leave her house again. Mrs. Burns then went into the kitchen to get a drink of water and she heard the sound of someone coming through the swinging doors which separate the living room from the kitchen. When she turned around, she saw appellant running to the back door, and while appellant attempted to unlock the back door, she began to scream and appellant turned his head towards her and motioned her not to scream. Mrs. Burns then ran to a neighbor's house and called the police. After an investigation by the police, Mrs. Burns took an inventory and found that two guns, several knives, and some jewelry were missing. Mrs. Burns gave a description to the police, and one of the officers thought the description fit someone he knew. Mrs. Burns suggested that if she had a high school yearbook she could confirm or deny whether the person suggested by the police was the perpetrator. After looking through the yearbook, she pointed out appellant's photograph to the police officers. Appellant was not the individual that the officer had originally suggested as a suspect.

Approximately one week later, a Beckham County Deputy Sheriff arrested appellant at his mother's house. When the officer went to the house to arrest appellant, the appellant was in the attic. After the arrest, the officer removed a pair of white cotton gloves and a knit stocking cap from appellant's hip pocket.

At trial, appellant presented the defense of alibi. He and his mother testified that he was at her house watching television when the burglary occurred.

For his first assignment of error appellant asserts that the trial court committed fundamental error by failing to instruct on his alibi defense theory. We first observe that appellant failed to object to the instructions given and further failed to request an alibi instruction; thus, this assignment was waived. Maghe v. State, 620 P.2d 433 (Okl.Cr.1980). Moreover, to entitle the defense to an alibi instruction the accused's proof must show that he could not have been at the place of the offense at the time shown by the prosecution. Goodwin v. State, 654 P.2d 643, 655 (Okl.Cr.1982). In the present case, both appellant and his mother testified that he was in his room watching television when the burglary occurred. However, since the house in which appellant was staying was only one and one-half (1 1/2) blocks from the victim's house, appellant failed to show that with ordinary exertion he could not have reached the place where the crime was committed so as to have participated in the commission thereof. Baxter v. State, 364 P.2d 705, 708 (Okl.Cr.1961). This assignment is groundless.

Appellant next contends that the fruits of the crime seized during his arrest should have been suppressed at trial because the arrest warrant was constitutionally defective. However, appellant failed to enter an objection to the arrest and further failed to file a motion to suppress the admission of the items. This Court has consistently held that an objection to evidence obtained by an illegal arrest must be interposed at the first opportunity by motion to suppress the evidence or during the course of the examination as soon as...

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4 cases
  • Fowler v. State
    • United States
    • United States State Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma. Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma
    • August 30, 1989
    ...of the evidence. We disagree. Not only were the comments not objected to, thus waiving all but fundamental error, Trissell v. State, 737 P.2d 1228, 1230 (Okla.Crim.App.1987), we find the comments to be reasonable inferences based upon the evidence. Lewis v. State, 732 P.2d 1, 3 Appellant ne......
  • Pierce v. State, F-87-446
    • United States
    • United States State Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma. Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma
    • February 5, 1990
    ...when the testimony establishes that the defendant could not have been at the scene of the crime when it was committed. Trissell v. State, 737 P.2d 1228 (Okl.Cr.1987). The record does not support such a Appellant sought to prove that he had been on his lunch break with two co-employees at th......
  • Honeycutt v. State, F-88-521
    • United States
    • United States State Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma. Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma
    • May 20, 1992
    ...when the testimony establishes that the defendant could not have been at the scene of the crime when it was committed. Trissell v. State, 737 P.2d 1228 (Okl.Cr.1987); accord Pierce v. State, 786 P.2d 1255, 1266 Appellant testified that he did not leave Todd Fair's mechanic shop and received......
  • Sloan v. Cowley
    • United States
    • U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit
    • November 29, 1993
    ...we find that [Sloan] has waived our consideration of this alleged error. Minter v. State, 756 P.2d 10 (Okla.Cr.1988); Trissell v. State, 737 P.2d 1228 (Okla.Cr.1987); Smith v. State, 695 P.2d 1360 (Appellant's Appendix at pp. 55-56). The Trissell court held that the failure to object to an ......

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