Freeman v. State

520 S.W.2d 739, 1974 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 261
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee
DecidedSeptember 18, 1974
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 520 S.W.2d 739 (Freeman v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Freeman v. State, 520 S.W.2d 739, 1974 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 261 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1974).

Opinion

OPINION

OLIVER, Judge.

Freeman, represented in his trial and here by members of the Metropolitan (Davidson County) Public Defender’s staff, is in this Court by an appeal in the nature of a writ of error contesting the validity of his armed robbery conviction, for which he was sentenced to imprisonment in the State Penitentiary for 25 years. A co-defendant, Leroy Bracey, was granted a severance.

Upon motion of this defendant, the trial court granted him a separate trial upon the question of his sanity at the time of the offense, and that jury found him to be sane at that time. At the later trial on the issue of guilt or innocence, before another jury, the defendant stood mute when asked to plead and the trial judge entered a plea of not guilty for him (TCA § 40-2309).

The defendant’s first Assignment of Error raises the usual challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence to warrant and support the verdict. He neither testified nor presented any evidence. In summary, the State’s evidence shows that about 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, February 5, 1972, the defendant and his co-defendant Bracey, with pistols drawn, entered the Wolk Jewelry Store in Nashville while only store personnel were present and ordered the proprietor to unlock the jewelry display cases and place the contents into a large bag (resembling a laundry bag or mail sack) one of them carried. This defendant stood behind one display case and watched the door while Bracey supervised and participated in emptying the showcases into the bag. As a result of someone in the store activating the burglar alarm connected with police headquarters, a police officer approached the front door while watches and assorted jewelry were being put into the bag. Freeman called out “Heat” to Bra-cey, who asked, “How many?” and Freeman replied, “One.” Freeman then placed his .45 automatic pistol against the head of the proprietor’s wife and told Bracey, “Don’t worry, I have her covered.”

When the policeman reached the front door, Bracey called out to him, “Come in and drop your gun.” The policeman retreated to the street and Bracey followed and fired at him and the officer returned the fire and Bracey was captured at the [741]*741rear of the jewelry store. Freeman looked for a rear entrance and, failing to find one, he removed his disguise, a mustache and wig and a coat and dropped those items to the floor, and then forced the watch repairman to accompany his outside as a hostage. Freeman then fled into a nearby store where he was apprehended, still in possession of his .45. They left the partially filled bag behind. These men were in the jewelry store the day before and looked around, on the pretext that Freeman was looking for a gift for his wife. Both were positively identified as the robbers by all the store personnel.

Considered in the light of the well-known legal principles governing appellate review of the evidence in criminal cases when its sufficiency is challenged on appeal, Webster v. State, 1 Tenn.Cr.App. 1, 425 S.W.2d 799; Shadden v. State, 2 Tenn.Cr.App. 450, 455 S.W.2d 164; Cagle v. State, Tenn.Cr.App., 507 S.W.2d 121, manifestly the defendant has failed to carry the burden resting upon him to demonstrate in this Court that the evidence preponderates against the verdict and in favor of his innocence.

It is immaterial that in their haste to flee and avoid capture, these robbers left the bag of jewelry behind. Of course, robbery is merely an aggravated type of larceny. Watson v. State, 207 Tenn. 581, 341 S.W.2d 728; State v. Winsett, 217 Tenn. 564, 399 S.W.2d 741. In Winsett, the Court said :

“In 54 C.J., at page 1010, it is said:

‘In a generic sense larceny and robbery are but different degrees of the same crime, robbery being merely an aggravated form of larceny or theft, the aggravation consisting of the use of actual or constructive violence against the person or the victim. In other words, robbery may be briefly 'defined as a forcible larceny from the person. While robbery has been termed an aggravated form of larceny, it is a distinct crime. There can be no robbery without violence, and no larceny with it. Therein lies the principal distinction between larceny, including larceny from the person, and robbery. A further distinction is that the crime of larceny may or may not include a taking from a person or presence, whereas the crime of robbery must include such a taking.' See also, 52 C.J. S. Larceny § 1.”

The slightest movement of personalty by trespass is sufficient carrying away or asportation to constitute larceny. Caruso v. State, 205 Tenn. 211, 326 S.W.2d 434. “In order to constitute an asportation of goods it is not necessary that they should be removed from the building or premises in which they are kept or from the vehicle in which they are being transported, but any removal of the property or goods from their original status, such as would constitute a complete severance from the possession of the owner, constitutes an asportation or carrying away, even though the transfer of possession existed for a very brief period of time. Thus the act of a thief in putting an article into his pocket or into a basket or sack which he carries is an asportation, even though he never leaves the owner’s premises.” 52A C.J.S. Larceny § 6(b), pp. 426-427.

The defendant’s second and fourth Assignments will be considered together. The specific insistence advanced by his second Assignment, that the court erred in failing to grant his motion for a directed verdict, is that the armed robbery amendment to T.C.A. § 39-3901 (Chapter 72, Acts of 1955) which re-wrote the robbery punishment statute to read as follows: “Every person convicted of the crime of robbery shall be imprisoned in the penitentiary not less than five nor more than fifteen years; provided, that if the robbery be accomplished by the use of a deadly weapon the punishment shall be death by electrocution, or the Jury may commute the punishment to imprisonment for life or for [742]*742any period of time not less than ten years,” “ . . . should be declared unconstitutional in its entirety and severed from the robbery statute as originally promulgated,” because discretionary capital punishment was outlawed by the United States Supreme Court in Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 92 S.Ct. 2726, 33 L.Ed.2d 346.

In the first place, at the date of the defendant’s trial on June 21, 1973, the words “death by electrocution, or the Jury may commute the punishment to,” had been deleted from TCA § 39-3901 by Section 4, Chapter 192 of the Acts of 1973, which became effective on 8 May 1973. Accordingly, the trial judge instructed the jury that the punishment for armed robbery was imprisonment for life or for any period of time not less than 10 years. Thus, the defendant was not charged with a capital offense. This complaint is unfounded.

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Bluebook (online)
520 S.W.2d 739, 1974 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 261, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/freeman-v-state-tenncrimapp-1974.