Dalton v. State

1939 OK CR 37, 90 P.2d 40, 66 Okla. Crim. 108, 1939 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 40
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma
DecidedApril 28, 1939
DocketNo. A-9450.
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 1939 OK CR 37 (Dalton v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Dalton v. State, 1939 OK CR 37, 90 P.2d 40, 66 Okla. Crim. 108, 1939 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 40 (Okla. Ct. App. 1939).

Opinion

DAVENPORT, J.

By information Carl Dalton, the defendant in the trial court, was charged with robbery with firearms after a former conviction of a felony, was convicted and sentenced to the state penitentiary for life. A motion for new trial was filed, considered, overruled, and defendant appeals.

William D. Hirschi, testifying on behalf of the state, stated:

“I live at Guthrie, Oklahoma. In 1932 I was county attorney of Logan county, Okla. I have seen the defendant before. In 1932, I had him up on a charge of robbery with firearms. In that case the defendant Carl Dalton pleaded guilty on the 3rd of December, 1932. Judge Freeman Miller was district judge at the time, and defendant Carl Dalton was sentenced to ten years in the penitentiary at McAlester, and was delivered to the penitentiary by, the sheriff.”

*110 Carl Morgan, testifying for the state, stated that he was court clerk of Logan county, Okla.; that he had in his possession and under his custody the files and records of the county clerk’s office. There was an information filed in the case, No. 1260, State of Oklahoma v. Carl Dalton, charging the defendant with a felony. The case was finally disposed of in the form of a judgment and sentence.

“I have the original judgment and sentence with me. The return of the sheriff shows that the defendant was delivered to the penitentiary. I was clerk two years while Freeman Miller was district judge.”

H. B. Rickard, testifying for the state, stated:

“I live in Oklahoma City, Okla. I have lived here for 22 years. I live on Grand Boulevard and Robinson, north. I work for the Oklahoma Publishing Company; have been working for it for 20 years. I am married. My family consists of a wife and two children, one four and one-half years old and the other two. My house sets back off the roadway about 100 yards. I recall May 30, 1937, which was Decoration Day. That morning we drove out to my mother’s farm, which is three miles west of Wheatland. Bill Frederick went with us. We returned home that day about 10 or 15 minutes of 1 o’clock in the afternoon. When we got back home, I parked the car in my driveway. There are five big rooms in our house. I did not have a key to the front door, and I went to the back door, and put my little girl through the window, and she opened the door from the inside. The window through which I put my little girl is in the west part of the house. The little girl opened the door and let me in. When I walked into the kitchen, I stopped at the water bucket to get me a drink; then she ran through into the living room, then she ran through into the big sitting room. I looked and saw her come running with her hands up, and I bent down and picked her up. The door from the kitchen enters the living room from the west side. It does not extend all the way across the house. When I reached down to pick up the little girl, and started back, I got shot through my hip (indicating). I saw the person who shot me. When I reached up and turned around and looked, he was behind my back. We were in the west room, immediately *111 north of the kitchen. It would be west of the door through which I was entering the sitting room from the kitchen and to my left. The person that shot me is now in the courtroom (pointing the defendant out who was sitting on the opposite side of the table in the courtroom). I did not know him prior to that date. I owned a gun and had left it in the dresser drawer of my bedroom that day.”

A gun was handed to the witness, and he identified it as being his gun that he had left in the dresser drawer in his room when he went to visit his mother.

“The nick in the handle was not there when I left it in the dresser drawer. After the shot was fired I hollered, ‘My God, What is going on here?’ and he said something, and that is when I first noticed him. I had my little girl in my arms and made a run to my bedroom, as I was scared, and he was behind me, and he said, ‘Lay down or I will kill you.’ I did not want to get hurt, and did not want her to get hurt. I wanted to hide her, that was my intention in going to the bedroom. I laid down and defendant had the gun to my back, standing up over me. The defendant turned around and went back in the living room. I could not see where he walked to after he went out of the sitting room. I heard him going through the house with my wife, talking to her. He came through the door and told my wife to lie down. She stood there a minute or two, and I said, ‘Honey, lie down or he will hurt you.’ He had the gun towards her stomach. I do not know just where my wife went when I first got out of the car. My little boy was out with my wife. He is a little more than two years old. My wife lay down on the floor, and the little boy came in from the kitchen and jumped in between us on the floor. The hired hand was out getting one of the cows that had gotten out and was putting her back in the lot. Mr. Frederick, the hired hand, came running into the big sitting room which is immediately west of the bedroom in which me and my wife and children were. The defendant was outside. After the defendant made my wife lay down on the floor, he went out and came back in the house, put the gun to my temple, and said, ‘Let me have your car keys or I will blow your brains out,’ and I said, ‘They are in my hip pocket,’ and he said, ‘Get them.’ I reached back and got them out of my hip pocket. I took my time and unfolded the keys and pulled *112 out the right key, and said, ‘Here is the key to it.’ He then ran out through the back part of the house; that is, he started that way. He did not come back in the house any more where my wife and the children were. I heard the car leave. We were in the house at the time the car was driven away. After the car left Mr. Frederick went to a telephone. After that I went to St. Anthony’s Hospital. I was there from 2 Sunday until Wednesday evening about 5 o’clock. I saw the man that shot me at St. Anthony’s Hospital. He was brought there. The envelope has pennies, nickels, and one or two dimes, and a lot of mills, and some kind of coin the kids got out of a box of Cracker Jacks — some kind of an advertisement, I would call it. They belong to my little girl.
“Exhibit ‘5’ is a bottle of perfume that belonged to my little girl.”
“Exhibit ‘6’ is a .410 shotgun shell. I have got a .410 gun, and I had the shells in the room when I left that morning. These shells were gone when I came back from the hospital. I looked for these shells.”
“The bullet that was fired into me, went on out. I did not see the bullet in the house, nor do I know who picked it up. The officers brought the man to the hospital that I identified, and he is here in the courtroom, and is the same man that I identified as being the man that shot me.”

On cross-examination the witness testified to substantially the same as in his original testimony. Going into detail as to the description of the house in which he was living, where he was shot, the things that were taken from the house and afterwards recovered by the officers from the defendant.

On redirect-examination the witness testified as to what he had paid for the car that was stolen from his driveway after the defendant shot him.

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Related

Johnson v. State
1969 OK CR 147 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma, 1969)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
1939 OK CR 37, 90 P.2d 40, 66 Okla. Crim. 108, 1939 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 40, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/dalton-v-state-oklacrimapp-1939.