Blount v. State

630 S.W.2d 856, 1982 Tex. App. LEXIS 4150
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedMarch 18, 1982
DocketNo. 01-81-0378-CR
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 630 S.W.2d 856 (Blount v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Blount v. State, 630 S.W.2d 856, 1982 Tex. App. LEXIS 4150 (Tex. Ct. App. 1982).

Opinion

EVANS, Chief Justice.

After a jury trial, the appellant was convicted of murder, which conviction was enhanced by a previous felony, and he was sentenced by the court to sixteen years imprisonment.

In his first ground of error, the appellant contends that the State’s evidence, being entirely circumstantial, is insufficient to support the jury’s verdict that he murdered the deceased.

The murder victim was the managing partner of a beauty shop which he and his brother owned. On Friday, March 28, 1980, the deceased left his shop about 12:35 p. m. and was expected to return for a 3:30 p. m. appointment. The next morning, Saturday, he did not appear at the shop, and neither his brother nor his mother could locate him at his apartment or elsewhere. Four days later, on April 1, 1980, a body wrapped in a piece of scrap carpet was noticed lying on a trash dump in Northeast Houston. After the police were notified, the body was identified as that of the victim. The body was clothed with the same shirt and red scarf [857]*857that the deceased had worn when he left the beauty shop the previous Friday, and it was unclothed from the waist down. The deceased was a homosexual, and he made no effort to hide that fact.

The county medical examiner testified that an autopsy was performed on the deceased’s body on April 3, 1980, and that, in his opinion, the deceased died as a result of asphyxiation due to strangulation by unknown means. He further testified that the condition of the body was consistent with death occurring anywhere from March 28, 1980, up until April 1, 1980.

About 1:30 p. m. on Friday, March 28, 1980, approximately one hour after the deceased left his beauty shop, the appellant’s next door neighbor saw someone drive a car to the appellant’s house and park it on the street in front of his house. She testified that two persons were in the car, and the appellant got out of the car on the passenger side. The driver of the car had the same body build as the deceased, and he wore a red shirt and red scarf of the same color and type as the clothing found on the deceased’s body. The neighbor at first thought the driver was a woman, but she later saw that the driver was a man. Thirty minutes later, she noticed that the car was still parked there, and she again noticed the car at ten o’clock that evening. The next morning the ear was gone, and she did not see it again until April 1, when she saw the appellant, accompanied by three other men, get into it and drive it away. She testified that on earlier occasions the appellant had driven his own truck.

A close friend of the deceased testified that on the morning of March 30, he had used the deceased’s car to run an errand. He said he saw the car twice on the following day, and the person driving the car was similar to the appellant. He also testified that he had occasion to look into the trunk of the car, and that the trunk was “fairly empty,” containing only some bottles and the spare tire.

On the 28th or 29th of March, the appellant, a used carpet dealer, drove a ear matching the description of the deceased’s car to the Factory Carpet Outlet to obtain some used carpet. The appellant had frequently picked up carpet at the store, and he generally drove a pickup truck. When old carpet was thrown away by the store, it was placed in a dumpster in back of the warehouse, and the appellant would come and look it over, select what was good enough, and take it away. He had done this on ten or fifteen occasions. On the date in question, the warehouse supervisor suggested that the carpet be put in the trunk of the car, but the appellant replied that he had “something in there” and told the manager to “just put it in the back seat.” The appellant returned several days later in the same car to see if there was any more carpet available.

Other witnesses testified that they had seen the appellant alone on March 30, 1980, driving the deceased’s automobile.

On April 10,1980, the appellant drove the deceased’s car to the home of a woman who had talked to him about buying some carpet. They went to the appellant’s house together. Later, she took his ear keys, left his house, and drove the deceased’s car to her sister’s house. She subsequently called the police, who went to the appellant’s house at 5:00 a. m. the following morning. When the police officers knocked on the door, the appellant looked out, saw them, and attempted to flee through a back window. The police then searched the appellant’s house and found keys to the deceased’s apartment. They also obtained the appellant’s palm prints from the hood of the deceased’s vehicle and his fingerprints from the outside of the driver’s window, as well as from a spiral notebook in the trunk of the ear. The license plates on the vehicle had been changed.

In reviewing a conviction based upon circumstantial evidence, this court is guided by the rules set forth in Flores v. State, 551 S.W.2d 364, 367 (Tex.Cr.App.1977):

It is well established that a conviction on circumstantial evidence cannot be sustained if the circumstances do not exclude every other reasonable hypothesis [858]*858except that of the guilt and proof amounting only to a strong suspicion is insufficient. Moore v. State, 532 S.W.2d 333 (Tex.Cr.App.1976); Higgins v. State, 515 S.W.2d 268 (Tex.Cr.App.1974); Indo v. State, 502 S.W.2d 166 (Tex.Cr.App.1973); Flores v. State, 489 S.W.2d 901 (Tex.Cr.App.1973); Culmore v. State, 447 S.W.2d 915 (Tex.Cr.App.1969).
In circumstantial evidence cases it is not necessary, however, that every fact point directly and independently to the defendant’s guilt. It is enough if the conclusion is warranted by the combined and cumulative force of all the incriminating circumstances. See Mills v. State, 508 S.W.2d 823 (Tex.Cr.App.1974); Herndon v. State, 543 S.W.2d 109 (Tex.Cr.App.1976). The rules of circumstantial evidence do not require that the circumstances should to a moral certainty actually exclude every hypothesis that the act may have been committed by another person, but the hypothesis intended is a reasonable one consistent with the circumstances and facts proved, and the supposition that the act may have been committed by another person must not be out of harmony with the evidence. Jones v. State, 442 S.W.2d 698 (Tex.Cr.App.1969); Taylor v. State, 87 Tex.Cr.R. 330, 221 S.W. 611, 615 (1920).

It is the appellant’s position that the evidence raises a reasonable hypothesis that someone other than the appellant could have murdered the deceased.

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662 S.W.2d 37 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1984)

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630 S.W.2d 856, 1982 Tex. App. LEXIS 4150, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/blount-v-state-texapp-1982.