Hardin v. State

1938 OK CR 122, 85 P.2d 332, 65 Okla. Crim. 260, 1938 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 107
Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma·Decided December 2, 1938·No. No. A-9350.·Published·Cited by 1 cases

Opinion

DAVENPORT, P. J.

Ted Hardin, the defendant, was by information charged jointly with Marvin Ward and Tom Carrick, with robbery; was tried separately, convicted and sentenced to serve a term of five years in the state penitentiary. Motion for a new trial was filed, considered, overruled and exceptions duly saved.

The substance of the testimony on behalf of the state shows that A. G. Lamb was running a store near the town of Salina, in Mayes county, Okla., on December 6, 1935. While John Phillips was at the store with A. G. Lamb one night two parties came into the store and robbed Lamb of some money and a pistol. Neither the prosecuting witness nor John Phillips could recognize the defendant as being one of the parties that took part in the robbery. A car was seen near the scene of the robbery after the parties left the store, and before John Phillips and A. G. Lamb got themselves released where the robbers had tied them, the car was driven away.

*262 One witness testified he was going hunting and saw the back of the car and described it as being a straight back and having a double bumper on it. The defendant was not seen by anyone in the neighborhood of where the robbery is alleged to have taken place. At the time of the reported robbery, the defendant lived near what is spoken of in the evidence as Little Kansas. All of the evidence against the defendant, Ted Hardin, is circumstantial.

Mrs. Bessie Templin, who was running a store at Little Kansas, or Twin Oaks, testified about 5 o’clock on the evening of December 6, 1935, Marvin Ward, Tom Carrick and the defendant were at her place of business, and Marvin Ward bought five gallons of gas; they were in Marvin Ward’s car and were traveling west, going in the direction of Salina. The state’s testimony shows that from the place where it is alleged Marvin Ward bought the gasoline to Salina, where Lamb and Phillips were robbed, is something like 25 or 30 miles.

About the 22nd or 23rd of December, 1935, after the robbery is alleged to have taken place on December 6, 1935, the defendant pawned to Mrs. Bessie Templin a pistol which was afterwards identified as being the pistol taken from the Lamb store the night of the robbery. The defendant was then living in a building belonging to Mrs. Templin, having moved into this building on the 4th of December, 1935, two days prior to the date of the robbery, and had something to do with running or managing the store at Little Kansas.

The testimony further shows that the defendant had moved from a place two or three miles away from the store building to the place belonging to the witness Bessie Templin, on the 4th day of December, 1935. After the pistol was found in the possession of Mrs. Templin, the party who claimed to have seen the car near the scene of the robbery at the Lamb store was driven over *263 to Little Kansas, or where Marvin Ward lived, and inspected the Marvin Ward car, and claimed the back of the car and rear bumpers of the car that drove away from near the Lamb store, near Salina, were similar to Marvin Ward’s car. The witness describing the car did not recognize any of the parties in the car, about the car, or in the store.

It is undisputed that Marvin Ward owned a Dodge 1926 business sedan, as the party who had previously owned it testified he sold the car to Marvin Ward. The state’s witnesses admitted there were many other Dodge sedans of the type of Marvin Ward’s car.

The foregoing is the substance of the state’s testimony.

The defendant testifying in his own behalf denied he had anything to do with the robbery, or that he was in Mayes county on the 6th of December, 1935; that he had lived at Little Kansas for some time, leaving there in February, 1936, and moving to Fort Gibson. At the time he left Little Kansas he was living in Mrs. Bessie Templin’s house; that he had moved there from the Sixkiller place; Mrs. Sixkiller was a sister of Mrs. Bud Snell, and was a full-blood Cherokee Indian. The defendant denies he had anything to do with Tom Carrick and Marvin Ward, or that he drove with them away from his home on the afternoon or evening of the 6th of December, 1935; and then testified that on the evening of the 6th of December, 1935, he and his wife went back to the place they moved from and got some chickens and brought them home; that on the way home they, saw Bud Snell, who lives between the place from which they moved and the place where they were living when they went for the chickens. The defendant describes in detail the route he and his wife traveled to the place where they lived, and as they came home they came by Bud Snell’s.

*264 Bud Snell corroborated the defendant and his wife about going to their former home on the afternoon or evening of the 6th of December, 1935, and their returning toward the place where they lived carrying chickens. Ausley Snell and Avery Foreman both testify they saw the defendant and his wife on the evening of December 6th, 1935, carrying chickens to their home where they were living.

The defendant and others testify he pawned the pistol to Mrs. Bessie Templin on the 22d or 23d of December, 1935, just a day or two before Christmas. Tom Carrick testified he knew Ted Hardin on the 22d of December, 1935; he went to defendant’s home in company with Ausley Snell early in the morning; somebody had reported an Indian had been drunk down on the road or trail a short distance from Ted Hardin, and it was reported the Indian had lost some money and that he, Ausley Snell, and Ted Hardin went down to look for the money; while down looking for the money Carrick says he showed Ted Hardin a pistol and told him he wanted to pawn it for $5. The defendant said he did not have the money, and Carrick asked him if he could get the money from Mrs. Bessie Templin, and the defendant went and pawned the pistol for $5, and came back and gave the money to him. Carrick says he and Ausley Snell stayed with the defendant until after breakfast and then started home; Carrick stated he worked in a barber shop in Kansas, Okla., and so far as he knew the defendant had never seen the pistol before the morning he asked him to let him have the $5 and take the pistol for security.

Ausley Snell corroborated Carrick as to going to the defendant’s home the morning the pistol was pawned to Mrs. Templin. There is no dispute that the pistol was owned by Lamb, the prosecuting witness,

*265 The witness Mrs. Bessie Templin says the defendant told her he wanted to pawn the pistol for $5 but he did not want her to sell it; he would not take $20 for it, or words to that effect. Mrs. Templin lived near the defendant. Marvin Ward lived in the same neighborhood of the Templin store where the defendant lived. Carrick, according to the testimony, lived at Kansas, a few miles away.

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Hardin v. State, 1938 OK CR 122, 85 P.2d 332, 65 Okla. Crim. 260, 1938 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 107 (Okla. Ct. App. 1938).

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