Alexander v. State

274 S.W.2d 81, 160 Tex. Crim. 460, 1954 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 1984
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Texas
DecidedApril 7, 1954
Docket26780
StatusPublished
Cited by27 cases

This text of 274 S.W.2d 81 (Alexander 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
Alexander v. State, 274 S.W.2d 81, 160 Tex. Crim. 460, 1954 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 1984 (Tex. 1954).

Opinions

WOODLEY, Judge.

This is a conviction for nighttime burglary of a private residence ; the punishment, five years in the penitentiary.

[461]*461At the outset, we are confronted with the attack upon the sufficiency of the indictment, the charging portion of which reads as follows:

“Grady Alexander did, then and there unlawfully in the nighttime, commit the offense of burglary, by then and there discharging firearms, to-wit: a shotgun, into the house of Israel Smith, with the intent then and there of committing a felony, to-wit: he, the said Grady Alexander did then and there with malice aforethought, discharge said shotgun into said house with the intent then and there to kill and murder Israel Smith; the said Israel Smith then and there being in said house, said house being then and there the private residence of the said Israel Smith, and then and there controlled and occupied by the said Israel Smith as a dwelling house; and he, the said Grady Alexander, did then and there shoot and discharge said shotgun into said house as aforesaid, without the consent of the said Israel Smith.”

It is apparent that the state was here attempting to charge the crime of nighttime burglary of a private residence under Art. 1391, V. A. P. C., and that the felony intended was the murder of Israel Smith, the occupant of the residence at the time. We find it to be sufficient to allege a burglarious entry. Broner v. State, 150 Texas Cr. Rep. 195, 200 S.W. 2d 191, overruling Shackelford v. State, 83 Texas Cr. Rep. 371, 203 S.W. 600, on this point.

Smith, the alleged injured party, was the president of the Western Foundry Company in Tyler. Appellant was the representative of the International Moulders and Foundry Workers Union of North America. The members of the local of that union, about seventy-five per cent of whom were Negroes, were employees of the Western Foundry Company. For some time prior to March 18, 1953, differences had arisen between the foundry company and the local union. In connection with efforts of the union to obtain a renewal of its contract, Smith had sought to have defendant jailed for contempt. Appellant had been heard to say, “Well, I’m going to kill that God damn Jew son of a bitch,” referring to Smith.

Smith’s one-story brick residence faced Belmont Avenue in Tyler. On the front side of the residence was a bedroom with two windows. Those windows were screened, and on the inside were metal blinds. The walls of the room were nine feet high. The top of the windows was something like 12 inches from the [462]*462ceiling, the bottom being some 2% feet above the floor. The house was situated upon what might be called a double terraced lot with two separate series of steps of five steps each. From the edge of the street to the house was a distance of thirty-five or forty feet. The windows of the bedroom were something like fifteen or eighteen feet higher than the street.

About two o’clock, A.M., on March 18, 1953, Smith was awakened by two shotgun blasts. He went immediately to the bedroom above described, where his twelve-year-old son was sleeping. There he found that No. 6 shot from a shotgun had been fired into the room and through the upper sash of the window. Some of the shot had penetrated the room and lodged in the ceiling and upper window sash and some had penetrated the metal blind. Glass from the window was scattered over the room and the bed. No person suffered an injury as a result of the shooting.

Smith had never occupied the room as his bedroom. The room he and Mrs. Smith occupied as their bedroom was not on the Belmont Avenue side of the house but was situated back of the room above mentioned.

The indictment charged that appellant fired the shots into the house with the intent to murder Smith.

To show such intent, the state relies upon the testimony of Mrs. Charles Hester, who had been indicted for the same offense for which appellant was on trial and who was therefore an accomplice witness, as a matter of law. The trial court so recognized and charged the jury that the witness was an accomplice.

Mrs. Hester testified that on the night of the shooting appellant came to her home and asked to borrow her husband’s shotgun. Hester, the husband, delivered it to the appellant, advising him that it was loaded. Appellant then stated to Hester that “he had something big up” and that he wanted to show him something. Thereupon, Mrs. Hester carried her baby to appellant’s automobile, which was parked near the front of the Hester home, and was there joined by appellant and her husband a short while later. James Gill and appellant’s wife were in the car at that time. At appellant’s request, Hester drove the automobile to Belmont Drive, the street upon which the Smith home was situated. Appellant told Hester that he was “going to fix Mr. Smith up,” and directed him to drive around the block to a side road, where appellant disconnected the tail lights of the [463]*463automobile. The automobile was then driven past the front of the Smith home, at which time appellant fired three blasts from the gun in the direction thereof. Immediately after the shots were fired, appellant said, “I bet that scared him,” and then he told Hester to “Step on it.” Prior to the shooting, James Gill had told appellant that he had “been in there two or three times, and Mr. Smith sleeps in this front bedroom.”

As the car was being driven to the home of Mrs. Alexander, appellant’s mother-in-law, appellant cut up the three empty shells from the gun and threw them out of the car. After reaching Mrs. Alexander’s home, James Gill, at appellant’s direction, hid the shotgun in the “loft” of her home.

The appellant did not testify.

The facts set forth in the two preceding paragraphs are shown, solely, by the testimony of the accomplice witness.

It is insisted that no facts were introduced in evidence sufficient to provide the corroboration of the accomplice witness necessary to authorize the conviction.

It become necessary to examine the record for such corroborative evidence.

Outside of and other than the testimony of the accomplice, it was shown: (a) The shotgun was found by the officers three days after the shooting, at Mrs. Alexander’s home. The gun was wrapped in a newspaper and no fingerprints were found thereon. After the gun was found, its possession was traced and, upon the trial, it was identified by the accomplice as belonging to her husband, (b) About three o’clock, A.M., being about an hour or hour and a half after the shooting, appellant and his wife drove into a filling station in their Lincoln automobile and purchased “some Seven Ups.” (c) Mrs. J. D. Hester, the mother of Charles Hester, testified to a conversation she had with the appellant at her home in the presence of her son Charles and Mrs. Charles Hester, the accomplice witness. The conversation took place after the appellant, Charles Hester, Mrs. Charles Hester, and others had been arrested and charged with the offense here involved. The witness testified that appellant came to her home at night and asked to see Charles Hester. When her son arrived she left the room temporarily. Upon returning, the appellant, Charles Hester, and Mrs. Charles Hester engaged in conversation, “talking about the shooting out at Israel Smith’s [464]*464house,” in the course of which appellant said, “ Charles, look. Now you know that we got into this together, and we’ve got to get out of it together. . . .

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Alexander v. State
274 S.W.2d 81 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1954)

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Bluebook (online)
274 S.W.2d 81, 160 Tex. Crim. 460, 1954 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 1984, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/alexander-v-state-texcrimapp-1954.