Ainsworth v. State

493 S.W.2d 517, 1973 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 2795
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Texas
DecidedApril 18, 1973
Docket45729
StatusPublished
Cited by75 cases

This text of 493 S.W.2d 517 (Ainsworth v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ainsworth v. State, 493 S.W.2d 517, 1973 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 2795 (Tex. 1973).

Opinion

OPINION

ODOM, Judge.

This is an appeal from a conviction for the offense of robbery by assault; the punishment was assessed by the court at 12 years.

We are faced at the outset with a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence to connect appellant with the offense.

The record reflects that appellant was indicted, together with Michael Freeze, Bob Murphy, Joel Taylor and Tom Moody, for the robbery of Jerry Ziegler, the manager of an A & P grocery store in South Houston. Joel Taylor, Tom Moody and the appellant were tried together in this cause.

The state’s evidence was adduced primarily from four witnesses: Michael Freeze, an accomplice witness; Jerry Ziegler, the person robbed; Jose Rousseau, a stock checker for the A & P store; and Lieutenant Brookover, the arresting officer.

Michael Freeze, the accomplice witness, related that on the day of the robbery he, the appellant, co-defendants Taylor and Moody, and the co-indictee Bob Murphy gathered at Moody’s apartment and planned the robbery.

Pursuant to plan, they left Moody’s apartment in two cars, a white Buick and an El Camino. The El Camino was parked within a mile of the A & P store. Taylor was left there to pretend he was having car trouble. The appellant, Moody, Murphy and Freeze drove the Buick to the A & P store and parked it around the corner from its entrance. Appellant entered the store first and took a lookout position near the store’s window. Then Murphy and Freeze entered the store and asked the manager whether he would cash a payroll check. After the manager, Jerry Ziegler, refused to cash the check, Freeze pointed his pistol at the manager and told him to give them the money from the store’s safe. Freeze and Murphy followed the manager into the office at which time Murphy handed him a sack in which to put the money. After all of the money in the safe had been emptied into the sack and after Freeze and Murphy left the manager’s office, appellant ran out of the store. Murphy and Freeze ran out behind him. All three ran to where the Buick was parked and where Moody was waiting. As they approached the car Moody asked, “Did you get it?” and Freeze answered, “Yes, let’s go!” The four men, with Moody driving, left in the Buick and drove to where the El Cami-no had been left. Once there, the guns and money were transferred to the El Camino. Then Taylor and Moody departed in the Buick. Freeze, Murphy and the appellant changed to the El Camino and went back to the apartment to await the arrival of their companions. They waited there until 5:30 P.M. and finally decided to call the South Houston Police Department to see if their companions had been arrested. When they found that they had been, appellant called his lawyer. Freeze left Moody’s apartment shortly thereafter and before the police arrived. A month later, he gave himself up to the police.

Jerry Ziegler testified that around 4:00 P.M. two men (referred to as “A” and “B”) approached him and asked him whether he could cash a payroll check. After he refused to cash the check, “A” pointed a pistol at him and said, “I’ve got a gun. I will kill you. Get me the money out of the office; don’t make a funny move.” “B” handed him a sack, which he described as a paper sack similar to a grocery sack. He and the two robbers went back to the office where Ziegler took all of the money *519 out of the safe and put it in the sack. He testified that approximately $400 to $500 was taken from the safe. 1 The manager stated that “A” told him to lie on the floor and not make a move; there was another man in the store that had a gun on him. “A” was described by the manager as being athletic looking and wore a banlon shirt. He described “B” as having a beard, long hair, and “wore a blue, golf cap with a band around it.”

Jose Rousseau, a stock checker ■ in the store, testified that he was standing in an aisle directly in front of the manager’s office when he first became aware that a robbery was taking place. He saw two men enter the office with the manager and could see the manager taking money from the safe and putting it in a sack. He testified that he looked around the store and noticed a third man, (referred to as “C”) whom he identified as the appellant, standing near the store’s window, looking in and out of the store. There were only eight or nine other people in the store at the time. He stated that the appellant hurriedly left the store and that he was followed by “A” and “B”. The three men ran down a sidewalk to an adjacent mall where a white, 1960 Buick was parked. Rousseau followed the men from a distance of 12-14 feet. The three men met a fourth man, “D”, who was standing near the parked Buick. Rousseau stated that he overheard “D” yell, “Did yoii get it ? ” and one of the other men answered, “Yes, we got it, let’s go! ” Although he did not see appellant get into the car, he did notice that there were four men in the car as it drove away. He identified “D”, the driver of the get-away car, as Tom Moody, one of appellant’s co-defendants. He also identified “A” as the accomplice witness Michael Freeze. A description of the get-away car was given to the police by Rousseau. 2

Officer Brookover testified that shortly after the robbery he arrested two men who were in an automobile which met the description of the reported get-away car. The two men were identified by the officer as co-defendants Moody and Taylor. No fruits of the crime were discovered in the car. Moody gave Officer Brookover the address of his apartment but cautioned that “it’s possible that there could be someone hurt if you went there.” With consent of Moody, Brookover and several other officers of the Houston Police Department proceeded to Moody’s apartment where they found and arrested appellant and a woman by the name of Joann Sims.

A search of the apartment produced a .32 caliber pistol, a .22 caliber pistol, a blue golf hat, and a sack of money in which were found coins which were rolled in Texas National Bank of Commerce wrappers.

Freeze identified one of the two pistols as the one he used in the robbery, and although he could not make identification of the other pistol recovered in the search, he did testify that Murphy also had a pistol during the robbery. When shown the money recovered from Moody’s apartment, Ziegler testified that some of the coins taken in the robbery were rolled in Texas National Bank of Commerce wrappers. Both Ziegler and Rousseau testified that State’s Exhibit No. 3, a blue golf hat, looked like the one worn by one of the robbers.

The jury was charged on the law of principals and that Michael Freeze was an accomplice witness as a matter of law. The testimony of witness Rousseau sufficiently corroborates the accomplice’s testimony. Article 38.14, Vernon’s Ann.C.C.P.; Runkle v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 484 S.W.2d 912. Further, the testimony of Rousseau is *520 sufficient to sustain appellant’s conviction as a principal in the robbery notwithstanding the testimony of the accomplice witness. The evidence is clearly sufficient to support the verdict. Hill v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 466 S.W.2d 791; Jones v.

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Bluebook (online)
493 S.W.2d 517, 1973 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 2795, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ainsworth-v-state-texcrimapp-1973.