Williams v. State

• Decision Date: 22 February 1961
• Docket Number: No. 32172,32172
• Citation: 343 S.W.2d 263,170 Tex.Crim. 595
• Parties: Frank Silas WILLIAMS, Appellant, v. STATE of Texas, Appellee.
• Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

Page 263

343 S.W.2d 263

170 Tex.Crim. 595

Frank Silas WILLIAMS, Appellant, v. STATE of Texas, Appellee.

No. 32172.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.

Feb. 22, 1961.

John Cutler, Houston, for appellant.

Leon B. Douglas, State's Atty., Austin, for the State.

WOODLEY, Presiding Judge.

Notice of appeal having been entered of record, the appeal is reinstated and our prior opinion and orders are withdrawn.

The offense is burglary; the punishment, 7 years.

The evidence shows that during the night of October 9th the Wilcox Drug Store, in Anahuac, was burglarized and an assortment of narcotics, a radio, a wrist watch, and other merchandise were stolen.

Entry into the building was made through the roof by boring holes and removing a portion thereof.

Appellant and one James Lyles were arrested in Houston the following afternoon when they were seen in the automobile which had been parked near the drug store, description and license number of which had been reported to Houston officers.

Lyles made a statement and showed the officers where the property introduced in evidence and identified as that taken from the Wilcox Drug Store, and some tools, were hidden in the weeds on Brian Bayou Road.

Appellant's confession made to County Attorney Jenson was introduced in evidence which reads, in part:

'James Lyles and myself left Houston about 10:00 P.M. on Friday, October 9, 1959, and from a drugstore located at Navigation and Wayside. We came to Anahuac in Chambers County, Texas, on State Highway No. 73. James Lyles was driving a 1950 Studebaker owned by Doris Jean Tidwell who I believe lives in Houston. This automobile was borrowed by James Lyles. We stopped several places to have a beer and we arrived in Anahuac, Texas, about 12:30 A.M. on Saturday, October 10, 1959. We drove around and seen the drug store. We got out of the car and went to the back of the store. We climbed up the drain pipe. James Lyles took the skylight out and bored a hole through the roof with a brace and bit. We went into the drugstore. We took all the narcotics we could find. We took a portable radio, cigrette lighters and a watch, necklaces and other costume jewelry. There were two safes in the drugstore. The door to one safe was open. We didn't fool with the locked safe. James Lyles and myself climbed out of the drugstore through the hole we had drilled in the roof. James Lyles and myself got into the 1950 Studebaker automobile and went toward Houston on State Highway 73 and spent the night at a motel near Greens Bayou or Channelview. I don't remember the name of the motel. James Lyles told me he got up about 9:00 A.M. and got some clothes out of the cleaners. James Lyles came back after me about 12:30 P.M. on Saturday, October 10, 1959. We sat around the motel until about 3:00 P.M. and started back to Houston. We stashed the stuff we had taken from the Wilcox Drug Store in Anahuac, Chambers County, Texas, on the side of a ditch out close to Highlands resorvoir. James Lyles and I were arrested right after we had stashed the stuff at a drive-in grocery by two Harris County deputy sheriffs. I did not have the permission of Mr. C. C. Wilcox or anyone else to break and enter his drug store and take the narcotics, radio and the other things that James Lyles and I carried off.'

Appellant complains that the court erred in failing to charge the jury on the issue of insanity as a defense and on temporary insanity.

The burglary was committed on the night of October 9, 1959. Appellant was arrested the following day and two or three days later was released on bond. Trial was had on March 7, 1960.

The evidence which appellant contends raised the issue of insanity at the time the burglary was committed is that of his mother who testified that he was subject to epileptic seizures which lasted for five or ten minutes: 'He gets to where he doesn't know a thing. He doesn't even know me. Q. For how long? A. I would say two hours anyway.'

Mrs. Williams testified that he had a seizure a week before the trial; that about a month before the trial, and again three weeks later he cut his wrists; that he had been having epileptic seizures two years; that the last one was in the doctor's office and lasted 10 or 15 minutes; that he became unconscious when he had such seizures.

It will be noticed that the evidence does not suggest that appellant was in a seizure or was suffering the effects of a seizure at the time he went from Houston to Anahuac, climbed up the drain pipe to the roof of the drug store, took all the narcotics he could find as well as other property, and climbed out through the hole in the roof.

Mrs. Williams' testimony, on the other hand, shows that he could not have committed the burglary had he at the time been in a seizure or suffering from the effects of a recent seizure.

The issue of insanity at the time of the...