Watson v. State, 24629
| Decision Date | 15 February 1950 |
| Docket Number | No. 24629,24629 |
| Citation | 154 Tex.Crim. 438,227 S.W.2d 559 |
| Parties | WATSON v. STATE. |
| Court | Texas Court of Criminal Appeals |
Jack W. Knight, Houston, James H. Letts, Houston, for appellant.
A. C. Winborn, Cr. Dist. Atty., Houston, E. T. Branch, Asst. Cr. Dist. Atty., Houston, George P. Blackburn, State's Atty., of Austin, for the State.
Appellant was convicted of the offense of robbery of Mamie Cleveland by assault, and his punishment was assessed by the jury at give years confinement in the penitentiary.
On the morning of April 10, 1949, Mamie Cleveland was found in her home dead, her body lying in bed covered with a blanket, her footlocker containing $127 missing.
In his oral and written confessions, introduced in evidence without objection, appellant gave a detailed account of his association with Mamie Cleveland on Saturday afternoon, April 9, 1949. He said that he had seen her get money out of the footlocker to make change for Connie D. Adams.
Regarding his last trip to Mamie's apartment that night, he said in his confessions:
He further confessed that he had then taken the footlocker and contents and had removed the money after breaking the lock by dropping the footlocker, and had given Connie a part of it.
Appellant did not testify on the trial.
The contention is made that the evidence is insufficient to corroborate the confession, that is, to establish the corpus delicti of the offense of robbery. For this reason, it is necessary that the evidence be detailed at some length.
Aside from the oral and written confessions of appellant, the evidence shows the following:
Appellant, a man of family, had been keeping company with Mamie Cleveland for about two years. He frequented her apartment which was occupied by her and her two children, a daughter Dorothy Nell, 19, a son, 17, and a grandchild.
The apartment consisted of two rooms, Mamie Cleveland sleeping in one and her two children and her grandchild occupying the other.
In Mamie's room was a small footlocker trunk. In the trunk was a green leather sewing kit or folder containing $127, which she was saving to pay on a lot she had bought.
About 4 P.M. on Saturday, April 9, 1949, appellant was present and saw Mamie get money from the trunk and change a ten dollar bill for his friend Connie D. Adams.
On that afternoon appellant asked Mamie to lend him $15, but she told him that she had no money except the money she had saved to pay on a lot she bought.
About two weeks previously, appellant had given Mamie a pistol to sell or pawn for him, but she returned the pistol after an unsuccessful attempt to comply with his request.
Appellant left the apartment about 6:30 P.M. Mamie left some time thereafter and returned home shortly after midnight. Upon her return she opened a can of beets, and after eating the beets, retired.
At all times Saturday she appeared to be in a good condition of health. About 4 o'clock the following morning (Sunday, April 10, 1949), appellant knocked on Mamie's door, and getting no answer raised the window. Mamie then got up, turned on the light, and let appellant in. There was some conversation thereafter between appellant and Mamie. He stated that a fellow named 'D' was with him. He asked Mamie to go to Galveston with him.
No other conversation or noise was heard by the daughter, Dorothy Nell, who slept in the adjoining room, only a few feet away. She got up about 5 or 5:30 A.M., closed the door, and went back to bed and to sleep.
Upon arising about 9:30 A.M. Dorothy Nell went into her mother's room. She noticed that the footlocker was gone; that the blanket was lying over her mother's head. She removed the blanket and found that her mother was dead.
She testified: 'My mother was lying on the bed in a crooked position like this.'
The officers were notified and given a description of the footlocker that was missing.
Connie D. Adams, who got the change from Mamie during the afternoon, testified for appellant. According to his version, he drove appellant to Mamie's apartment, and remained in appellant's car with another boy, O. C. White; he was asleep and did not know the time except that appellant returned to the car shortly before dawn, and it was after midnight when they arrived.
He disclaimed any knowledge of the footlocker having been placed in the car. Appellant made no statement to him as to what had occurred in the apartment.
Connie also testified:
'The next morning, which was Sunday, the defendant told me that while I was asleep in the car that night he got some money and I didn't know it, and he gave me $21 of it.
Connie testified that he thereafter drove appellant and appellant's wife to the police station about 9 P.M. Sunday and drove them back home.
The record does not disclose what, if any, explanation was made by appellant on this occasion. Appellant's wife testified also regarding the trip to the police station, and explained that appellant was taken into a room apart from Connie and herself, and that they did not hear what was said. Appellant, however, was permitted to return home with his wife.
On the following morning (Monday, April 11th), April 11th), Houston police officers C. F. Langston and C. B. Sheppard went to appellant's home and took appellant and Connie D. Adams out to their car. After some conversation, the officers stated that they wanted to talk to them further and drove away with them in the car.
After driving a few blocks, appellant told the officers to take him back home and he would get them the footlocker.
Appellant then made his confession to Officer Langston which was later reduced to writing and signed by him.
The officers accompanied appellant to his car and appellant unlocked the trunk of the car and took out a footlocker.
Among the contents was a green folder. The footlocker and folder were afterwards identified as being the property of Mamie Cleveland, which was missing from her room. Appellant also delivered to the officers $34 in money which he said was all of the money he had left of that taken out of the footlocker.
Appellant says that there is no proof that the property was taken in robbery; that the hypothesis that it was taken by theft from a dead person is not excluded, except by resort to the confession. It is his contention that in view of the fact that no marks of violence were found on the body of the deceased, no physical evidence of a struggle sufficient to awaken the parties in the adjoining room, and that no witness saw or heard appellant threaten or assault Mamie Cleveland, and the further fact that appellant and Mamie were friendly even to the last conversation heard between them, that the evidence is insufficient to show that the property was taken by means of an assault. Therefore appellant contends that the evidence is insufficient to corroborate the confession.
In determining this question the following propositions of law, well established by the decisions of this court, must be kept in mind.
The confession of the guilty party alone is not sufficient to support a conviction for...
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