Burton v. State

442 S.W.2d 354, 1969 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 979
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Texas
DecidedMay 21, 1969
Docket41544
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 442 S.W.2d 354 (Burton 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
Burton v. State, 442 S.W.2d 354, 1969 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 979 (Tex. 1969).

Opinion

OPINION

DOUGLAS, Judge.

The conviction is for robbery; the punishment, ninety-nine years.

The indictment charged Henry D. Burton and Zane Leonard Evans with robbery by using and exhibiting a firearm. A severance was granted and Burton, the appellant, was tried first. The court charged the jury on robbery by assault, omitting the capital feature of the case.

The record reflects that an Ideal Food Store in Pampa was robbed of three hundred one dollar bills a little after two o’clock on Saturday afternoon, June 18, 1966, by a man wearing a dark sport hat and a dark colored sport coat; that the robber and another left the store in a white Dodge Dart automobile.

In the first two grounds of error the sufficiency of the evidence is challenged. Peggy Ryan testified that she was a longtime friend of Burton; that she, with her three-year-old daughter, had brought Zane Leonard Evans and Burton from Oklahoma to Pampa in her 1963 Oldsmobile; that all of them stayed at the Plainsman Motel in Pampa one or two days prior to the robbery; that she, Burton and Evans rented an apartment (at Legg’s Apartment House) the day before the robbery, and also on that same day, she, her daughter and Evans went to a park (Hobart Street Park) just south of a railroad track immediately adjacent to a railroad bridge. Shortly after noon on the day of the robbery she drove Evans and Burton in her car to downtown Pampa on Main Street and let them out where they were to see about a job. Evans told her to go to the park and wait for them. About an hour later Evans and Burton came up to her car which was near the railroad bridge in the park. • They left the park, checked out of the Plainsman Motel within just a few minutes, went to the apartment and all four of them were in the car ready to leave for Clinton, Oklahoma when the officers arrived. At this time both Evans and Burton were intoxi *356 cated. When Burton got out of her car, one dollar bills fell out of his shirt. Peggy Ryan gave the officers permission to search the car. She testified that there was a “bunch” of one dollar bills in the car; that Burton told the officers that the baby had taken money out of her purse and it belonged to her, but in fact the money did not belong to her.

Peggy Ryan further testified that the officers took the gun that belonged to her from Burton. She had left it in the glove compartment and did not know that Burton had it. A picnic icebox containing a hat and milk for her baby was in the front of the car. Burton asked her if she did not want to take the baby’s milk inside, and then he told her, “ * * * get rid of the hat.” She then took the icebox to the apartment and threw the hat (State’s Exhibit No. 1) behind the refrigerator.

The testimony shows that a white 1964 Dodge Dart automobile belonging to R. L. Johnson was parked at about 1:20 o’clock in the afternoon on the date of the robbery. It was found to be missing about an hour later. Sometime after three o’clock the same day the stolen Dodge Dart was found abandoned on a dead-end street which ended at the railroad track at the Hobart Street Park. Shoe and boot tracks leading from the abandoned car toward the park were found. The ground was muddy near the bridge at the park, but it was dry elsewhere. The shoes of Evans and the boots of Burton appeared to have been recently washed at the time they were apprehended, but the shoes still had some mud on them. Good plaster of paris molds were made of the tracks. The names on the heels of the shoes and boots of Evans and Burton were identical to those in the molds. The molds, boots and shoes were introduced into evidence. In the opinion of trained officers, the imprints preserved by the molds were made by the boots and shoes worn by Evans and Burton at the time they were apprehended.

Larry Blair testified that he was assistant manager of the food store; that he was robbed of some three hundred one dollar bills by a man who exhibited a gun and who was wearing a dark sport coat and a darker sport straw hat, and that the robber and another man were seen leaving the store driving a white Dodge Dart. When Blair was asked if State’s Exhibit No. 2 was the coat worn by the robber, he answered: “Yes, Sir, no doubt that is the coat.” He stated that the hat (State’s Exhibit No. 1) was very much similar to the one worn by the robber. He testified that Evans was the man who robbed him and identified him in the courtroom.

Ranger Bill Baten testified that he went to the Legg Apartments between three-thirty and four o’clock the day of the robbery and saw Peggy Ryan, her baby, Evans and Burton; that as Burton got out of the car his shirt tail came out and one dollar bills started blowing all over the place. Some more bills were taken from the side of his shirt, from his pockets and from the seat of the car. Two hundred eighty-nine one dollar bills were found in Burton’s billfold, on the car seat, in his shirt and on the ground where they had fallen. A total of three hundred nine one dollar bills were taken from Burton and Evans. Burton told the officers that he got the money gambling. While at the scene Baten asked Peggy Ryan if she had a pistol, and Burton volunteered, “I have the pistol in my pocket.” The pistol was taken from him by the officers and was introduced into evidence. During the search of Peggy Ryan’s car, a dark sport coat (State’s Exhibit No. 2) was found in Evans’ suitcase. The straw hat (State’s Exhibit No. 1), with the brand name and all identification cut out of the inside band, was found behind the refrigerator in the apartment where Peggy Ryan told the officers it would be. It was also shown that some .22 caliber bullets were found in the commode or in the water tank of the commode in the apartment.

E. M. Stafford testified that he was the manager of the Plainsman Motel; that Evans and the group stayed at the motel *357 for two nights before the robbery; that Evans and the woman (Peggy Ryan) checked out of the motel about an hour after he had been called by the officers about the robbery; that Evans and the woman appeared to be nervous and were in a hurry; that Evans said that he did not have the money but would pay him in a day or two.

Esther M. Legg testified that on June 17, 1966, the day before the robbery, she rented an apartment to Evans who said that the woman and baby were his wife and child. He gave the name of James L. Scott when he registered.

The court submitted the case on circumstantial evidence. The evidence was sufficient to support the conviction.

Complaint is made in the third ground of error that the court committed fundamental error in charging that the testimony to corroborate the accomplice witness. Peggy Ryan, need only tend to connect the defendant to the crime charged. The instruction in substance was that if the jury found that Peggy Ryan was an accomplice, and if they found that a crime had been committed, they could not convict Burton on the testimony of Peggy Ryan unless they believed her testimony to be true; and then they could not convict the defendant “unless you further believe that there is other evidence in this case, outside the evidence of said Peggy Ryan, tending to connect the defendant with the commission of the offense charged in the indictment and then from all the evidence you must believe beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty.”

No objection was made to the charge; no error is shown.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Commonwealth v. Parker
409 S.W.3d 350 (Kentucky Supreme Court, 2013)
Simmons v. State
205 S.W.3d 65 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 2006)
Mark Irwin Stevens v. Lynn Stevens
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2006
Jackie Glynn Simmons v. State
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2006
Runkle v. State
484 S.W.2d 912 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1972)
Price v. State
475 S.W.2d 742 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1972)
Newell v. State
461 S.W.2d 403 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1970)
State v. Isaacs
265 N.E.2d 327 (Ohio Court of Appeals, 1970)
Evans v. State
445 S.W.2d 180 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1969)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
442 S.W.2d 354, 1969 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 979, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/burton-v-state-texcrimapp-1969.