Overton v. State

521 S.W.2d 229, 1974 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 251
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee
DecidedDecember 20, 1974
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 521 S.W.2d 229 (Overton 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
Overton v. State, 521 S.W.2d 229, 1974 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 251 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1974).

Opinion

OPINION

OLIVER, Judge.

Represented by appointed counsel (the University of Tennessee Legal Aid Clinic) at all stages of this prosecution, defendant perfects his appeal in the nature of a writ of error to this Court. He stands convicted of second degree burglary (TCA § 39-903) and has been sentenced to a term of not less than three years nor more than five years in the penitentiary as punishment for this offense.

Defendant was convicted of second degree burglary arising out of the breaking into of the apartment of Ben Cobb in Knoxville, Knox County, on June 20, 1973, between the hours of 10:00 a. m. and 1:00 p. m. Mr. Cobb left his home on that morning between the hours of 9:00 and 10:00 a. m., after ascertaining that the doors were locked. As he was leaving he saw a man, whom he later identified as the defendant, standing on the sidewalk three or four feet from his front door. He said “Good morning,” and the man replied, “Good morning, is that where you live?” Mr. Cobb stated that he lived there and walked down the street to the bus stop. He returned home in a couple of hours and found that his apartment had been broken into and a .38 pistol, a watch, and $80 in cash had been taken from the apartment. It was determined that entry to the apartment was made through a window which had been broken.

The police investigated and Mr. Cobb described the man who was standing outside his home as black, wearing a dark ball cap and jeans with white paint on the legs. Around 2:00 o’clock that afternoon the investigating officers were driving down the street about six or eight blocks from the [231]*231site of the burglary. They saw a man answering the description given them by Mr. Cobb, who turned out to be the defendant. He was walking down Cavalier Street and when he noticed the police car he turned sharply and went at a fast walk into the front yard of a Mr. Bradley. He went onto the porch of the house, laid down behind the chair in which Mr. Bradley was sitting and placed something into the seat of the chair behind Mr. Bradley. As the officers approached the house, the defendant got up and started to walk out of the yard. One of the officers stopped him and asked him his name. The other officer approached Mr. Bradley on the portch and asked him if the defendant left anything on the porch. Bradley replied that he did and the officer picked up the gun. Bradley claimed that this was the first time that he had seen the defendant that day. The serial number on the gun matched the serial number of the gun stolen from Mr. Cobb that morning. Mr. Cobb later identified the gun as his.

The officers later took a statement from the defendant which parallels closely his testimony at the trial. He testified that he was on Kyle Street (where Mr. Cobb lived) on the morning in question, talking to a Mr. Ward who lived two doors down from Cobb. He was on Ward’s back porch and never went inside his house. As he was leaving, he saw Miss Jackson, Cobb’s next door neighbor, standing by her back door. He had not seen this lady in about 20 years and went into her apartment and talked for five or 10 minutes. He then left, walking across the parking lot behind the apartments to Olive Street and down Olive Street to McConnell.

When he got to the corner of McConnell and Olive, he saw a man who called his name and asked him if he had $20. He went over to the man, whom he did not know, and asked him what he wanted $20 for. The man showed him a pistol which he offered for sale and the defendant talked him down to $12.50. The man said that he would meet Overton later that night and buy the gun back from him. Some men that Overton knew were on a KUB truck nearby and he talked to them for a short while. Joshua Nero, testifying for the defense, said that he was one of the men in the KUB truck; that he saw the defendant buy the gun from a man on the street and talked shortly with the defendant at the time. He was at the time of the trial incarcerated for larceny and shared a cell with the defendant.

Overton, the defendant, stated that after he had bought the gun, he went down Chestnut Street and played some horseshoes and checkers. Upon seeing Mr. Bradley sitting on his front porch, he bought a half pint of whiskey, went over to Bradley’s house and they had a drink. He was leaving Mr. Bradley’s house when he saw the police car. He was afraid that the police might shake him down and find the gun, so he returned to Bradley’s porch and placed the gun on the seat where Bradley was sitting. The police stopped, found the gun, and arrested him.

He claimed he was never in front of the apartments on the day in question and that he never saw nor spoke to Cobb at any time.

It is, of course, well settled that a defendant attacking, as this defendant does, the sufficiency of the evidence to convict him bears the burden of showing, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the jury verdict was erroneous. Webster v. State, 1 Tenn.Cr.App. 1, 425 S.W.2d 799 (1967) and cases cited therein.

Defendant’s first Assignment of Error generally attacks the sufficiency of the evidence. His second Assignment of Error more specifically attacks his conviction on circumstantial evidence because, he claims, the evidence does not exclude every other reasonable hypothesis except that of guilt and was not inconsistent with his innocence. We address ourselves to these Assignments.

[232]*232The rule in Tennessee is that to warrant a conviction on circumstantial evidence alone, “the evidence must be not only consistent with the guilt of the accused but it must also be inconsistent with his innocence and must exclude every other reasonable theory or hypothesis except that of guilt, and it must establish such a certainty of guilt of the accused as to convince the mind beyond a reasonable doubt that he is the one who committed the crime.” Pruitt v. State, 3 Tenn.Cr.App. 256, 460 S.W.2d 385, 390 (1970). The determination of whether all other reasonable theories are excluded by the evidence presented is primarily a question of fact for the decision of the jury. Marable v. State, 203 Tenn. 440, 313 S.W.2d 451; Pruitt v. State, supra; Sotka v. State, 503 S.W.2d 212 (Tenn.Cr.App.1972).

In the instant case a man answering the description of the defendant, and who was later identified as the defendant, was on the sidewalk in front of the house where the burglary occurred shortly before it took place. He spoke to the owner of the burglarized apartment and asked him if he lived there. He was discovered very soon after the burglary with fruits of the crime in his possession. See Pruitt v. State, supra; State v. Clark, 438 S.W.2d 277 (Mo.S.Ct.1969). Upon discovery by the police, he attempted to hide the gun he had stolen and attempted to evade the police. See Sotka v. State, supra.

Although he offered an explanation for his possession of the gun stolen from the Cobb apartment, obviously the jury rejected his story as spurious. Of course it is fundamental that the jurors are the sole and only judges of the evidence, and of the weight to be given to the swearing of each and every witness in the case.

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Related

State v. Raymer
623 S.W.2d 644 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee, 1981)
State v. Glebock
616 S.W.2d 897 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee, 1981)
State v. Garland
617 S.W.2d 176 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee, 1981)
Delk v. State
590 S.W.2d 435 (Tennessee Supreme Court, 1979)
Ramsey v. State
571 S.W.2d 822 (Tennessee Supreme Court, 1978)
Proctor v. State
565 S.W.2d 909 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee, 1978)

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Bluebook (online)
521 S.W.2d 229, 1974 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 251, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/overton-v-state-tenncrimapp-1974.