Durrough v. State

672 S.W.2d 860, 1984 Tex. App. LEXIS 5572
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedMay 24, 1984
Docket13-83-010-CR
StatusPublished
Cited by20 cases

This text of 672 S.W.2d 860 (Durrough 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
Durrough v. State, 672 S.W.2d 860, 1984 Tex. App. LEXIS 5572 (Tex. Ct. App. 1984).

Opinions

OPINION

GONZALEZ, Justice.

This is an appeal in a murder case. The jury assessed punishment at life imprisonment. On appeal, appellant asserts that the trial court erred in admitting evidence of an allegedly tainted identification, in failing to dismiss the indictment based upon the loss by the State of some defense exhibits, in admitting an extraneous “offense,” and in submitting a supplemental jury charge after the jury had retired to deliberate. Appellant also alleges that the evidence was insufficient to corroborate the accomplice testimony. We affirm.

Appellant has been indicted five times, tried four times, and found guilty three times of the murder of Henry S. Tyler.

The offense occurred in San Antonio in August, 1973.

The first trial, Cause No. 74-CR-575-A, was aborted when the trial court granted the State’s motion to dismiss the indictment after five jurors had been selected. Appellant was reindicted and found guilty of the offense of capital murder in Cause No. 74-CR-2140-A, but that judgment was reversed on appeal because the trial court erred in failing to grant a change of venue upon appellant’s uncontroverted application. Durrough v. State, 562 S.W.2d 488 (Tex.Cr.App.1978). After the case was remanded, but before the trial which resulted in the second conviction began, the State moved to dismiss the then pending indictment because it was “faulty.” A third indictment was obtained, and the appellant was found guilty and sentenced to death a second time. He appealed, and the judgment (Cause No. 79-CR-78) was reversed on the basis that the trial court erred in excluding a prospective juror that had conscientious scruples against capital punishment, and acknowledged that the mandatory penalty of death or life imprisonment might affect her deliberations, but who stated that she could answer the questions put to her based on the evidence. Durrough v. State, 620 S.W.2d 134 (Tex.Crim.App.1981).

The case now before us is an appeal of appellant’s conviction in Cause No. 82-CR-418-D, a trial conducted in Nueces County on change of venue from Bexar County.

The following is an abbreviated chronology of events:

August 11, 1973 Date of offense
October 3, 4, 1973 Accomplices arrested, and statements taken in which appellant was implicated.
December 20, 1973 Appellant’s Examining Trial
September 18, 1974 Hearing on motion to suppress pretrial and in-court identification in Cause No. 74-CR-575-A.
March 12, 1982 Hearing on motion to suppress pretrial identification.
[864]*864June 14, 1982 Stipulation filed that pri- or testimony of Mrs. Dorothy Tyler given in trials in Causes 74-CR-2140A (first conviction) and 79-CR-78 (second conviction) and at the examining trial of December 20, 1973, may be read into evidence without further predicate. This is because at the time of this last trial which resulted in the instant appeal, Mrs. Tyler was deceased.
June 14, 1982 Jury sworn, trial commenced.
June 21, 22, 1982 Appellant found guilty of murder and sentenced to life.

Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict, the record shows that three men, appellant, and Jimmy and Bobby Gifford, went to the Tyler home with the intent to commit a burglary or a robbery. After Mr. Tyler answered the doorbell, his wife heard a shot. She rushed to the front porch and found Mr. Tyler bleeding from a bullet wound. As Mrs. Tyler was pushed back into the entrance of her home by Jimmy Gifford, she saw appellant shoot her husband a second time. The trio fled, but not before appellant turned at the curb and shot Mr. Tyler a third time.

At trial, and on appeal, the key issue is whether Mrs. Tyler’s identification testimony was admissible.

Since Mrs. Tyler was deceased at the time of appellant’s last trial (the conviction from which this appeal stems), the State relied upon her testimony elicited at prior prosecutions of appellant, and upon part of the testimony she gave at the examining trial. The -State also relied upon the live testimony of Bobby Gifford to show that appellant was the person who shot Mr. Tyler.

On appeal, appellant argues that the identification of appellant by Mrs. Tyler was the result of a pre-trial confrontation so suggestive that her in-court identification of appellant could not have been of an independent origin, and was therefore so tainted as to be rendered inadmissible. Appellant then argues that because her testimony was the only source of evidence to corroborate the testimony of Bobby Gif-ford, his conviction must be reversed, as the uncorroborated testimony of an accomplice is insufficient to support his conviction.

Specifically, appellant alleges in his first ground of error that:

“The honorable trial court erred in admitting into evidence over appellant’s timely objection, the tainted in-court identification testimony of Mrs. Dorothy Tyler, which was not of independent origin.”

The State asserts that appellant’s first ground of error was not properly preserved for review, arguing that in order to complain of a tainted in-court identification, the accused must lodge a timely and specific objection. See Deary v. State, 510 S.W.2d 956, 957-58 (Tex.Crim.App.1974).

Appellant counters that no objection at trial was necessary because a pre-trial hearing was conducted, and appellant’s motion to suppress Mrs. Tyler’s identification testimony was overruled. When such a motion is heard and overruled, another objection before the jury is not required to preserve error. Waller v. State, 581 S.W.2d 483, 485 and 485 n. 1 (Tex.Crim.App.1979).

The pre-trial hearing to which appellant refers was conducted on September 18, 1974, in Cause No. 74-CR-575-A in conjunction with appellant’s first trial. Appellant states that the examining trial and suppression hearing testimony of Mrs. Tyler and Police Chief Stewart was “offered into evidence and incorporated into the record by reference, on the basis of which Appellant’s Motion to Suppress was overruled by the Trial Court.” 1

[865]*865A detailed review of the facts is necessary in order to properly evaluate appellant’s contention. The offense occurred on August 11, 1973. After the confrontation on the front porch of the Tyler home, the assailants fled. After appellant was “implicated” by the Gifford brothers, he was arrested in Dallas on August 26, 1973.

Our examination of the record, as properly delivered to this Court by the District Clerk, and excluding the material we received from appellant’s attorney in the form of “omitted exhibits,” leaves no reasonable conclusion but that a motion to suppress Mrs. Tyler’s pre-trial identification and in-court identification was filed and that this motion was overruled.2 Therefore, appellant’s objection to Mrs. Tyler’s identification testimony was properly preserved for review.

Before the police became privy to the identity of the suspects through the aid of their informer, they attempted to establish a description from the recollections of Mrs. Tyler.

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Bluebook (online)
672 S.W.2d 860, 1984 Tex. App. LEXIS 5572, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/durrough-v-state-texapp-1984.