Rushing v. State

1948 OK CR 22, 190 P.2d 828, 86 Okla. Crim. 241, 1948 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 153
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma
DecidedMarch 3, 1948
DocketNo. A-10787.
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 1948 OK CR 22 (Rushing 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
Rushing v. State, 1948 OK CR 22, 190 P.2d 828, 86 Okla. Crim. 241, 1948 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 153 (Okla. Ct. App. 1948).

Opinion

BAREFOOT, P. J.

Defendant, Tilson O’Dane Rushing, was charged with Herbert Brannon Martin, in the district court of Oklahoma county, with the crime of burglary in the second degree after former conviction of a felony; was tried, convicted and sentenced to serve a term of ten years in the State Penitentiary at McAlester, and has appealed.

*243 For proper consideration of the questions presented in this appeal, it becomes necessary to give a short statement of the facts, as revealed by the record.

The defendant and Herbert Brannon Martin were charged with burglarizing the Viking Freight Company in Oklahoma City on September 18, 1945, and stealing therefrom $90 in money, a suit of clothes, a belt, and a Lions Club pin. Defendant was tried separately, and the jury on March 11, 1946, returned a verdict of guilty, assessing his punishment at ten years in the State Penitentiary. The first trial of defendant resulted in a hung jury, and this was the second trial.

The prior' convictions in felony cases, alleged in. the information, were in case No. 16,297, in the district court of Oklahoma county, in which the defendant was convicted of the crime of burglary in the second degree on February 18, 1944, and sentenced to the State Reformatory at Granite for a period of two years; and in case No. 16,-570, in the district court of Oklahoma county, in which he was convicted of the same crime, on February 15, 1944, and again sentenced to serve a term of two years in the State Reformatory at Granite.

The petition in error with case-made attached was filed in this court on September 19, 1946, and on September 26, 1946, counsel for defendant filed in this court an application for an order directing the district court of Oklahoma county to hear and determine a motion for new trial filed in that court, on the grounds of newly discovered evidence; and this court, on September 26, 1946, entered an order authorizing the district court of Oklahoma county to permit the filing of the motion for new trial, and to hear and determine the matters set forth in said motion, and, “that a proper record of the proceedings had *244 upon said bearing be prepared so that the same may be attached to the case-made now filed in connection with the appeal in the above-entitled and numbered cause.”

This order was complied with, and a full and complete transcript of the proceedings in which the motion for a new trial was overruled by the trial court has been filed and both the original case-made and the transcript have been considered on this appeal.

The Attorney General filed a motion to dismiss the appeal in this case, for the reason that the defendant had left the state pending his appeal, without obtaining the consent of the court. This motion was presented at the time the case was orally argued, and the case was submitted on the motion to dismiss and on the merits.

After careful consideration of the facts and circumstances, we have decided that the motion to dismiss should be overruled, and the case decided on its merits.

The first proposition submitted for a reversal of this case is:

“A conviction upon the testimony of an alleged accomplice, uncorroborated by other independent evidence tending to connect the defendant with the commission of the offense, and which merely shows the commission of the crime charged and circumstances thereof, and merely tending to raise a suspicion of guilt, is insufficient.”

This is not a new question in this court. We have had many cases in which this question was raised and we do not deem it necessary to enter into a detailed discussion of the cases and the law with reference thereto. Excerpts may be taken from the many cases which, if construed alone, would seem to sustain the position of the state or the defendant. It is only by an examination of the particular facts in each case and the application *245 of the law to those facts, that it may be correctly determined whether the accomplice has been properly corroborated. The statute with reference to the corroboration of an accomplice is Tit. 22 O. S. 1941 § 742, and is as follows:

“A conviction cannot be had upon the testimony of an accomplice unless he be corroborated by such other evidence as tends to connect the defendant with the commission of the offense, and the corroboration is not sufficient if it merely show the commission of the offense or the circumstances thereof.”

It is an admitted fact that the witness Herbert Bran-non Martin, who testified for the state in this case, was an accomplice. His testimony at the trial of defendant was that on the night of September 18, 1945, he and defendant entered and burglarized the Viking Freight Company, as alleged in the information. He testified as follows :

“Q. How old are you? A. Twenty-one. Q. When was your birthday? A. The 3rd of this month. Q. Do you know Tilson O’Dane Rushing? A. I do. Q. How long have you known him? A. About 11 or 12 years. Q. Where do you live? A. 1529 South Blackwelder. Q. And where are you now? A. I am upstairs in the county jail. Q. And how long have you been up there? A. Ever since the 1st of December, about seventy days, I guess. * * * Q. Previous to that, where had you been? A. California. Q. Do you recall September the 18th of 1945? A. Yes, I do. Q. Did you see Tilson O’Dane Rushing-on that day? A. I did. Q. Where did you see him? A. I was coming uptown that day and I saw him uptown on that night. Q. Now, where did you see him uptown that day, if you know? A. Well, it was somewhere on Main street, we just met, I think. * * * Q. Now, where did you next see him that day, if you know? A. I saw him that night at the Treanon Ballroom. Q. About what time did you see him up there? A. About 10:30, some *246 thing like that. Q. Did you talk with him? A. Yes, I did. Q. All right; What was said between you and he at that time, if anything? A. Well, that day, we had talked about making some money, and so, we looked at a place uptown and decided— * * * And we looked at this place over at the finance office; we talked a little, it was next to the building, and we looked at this finance office there and we didn’t want to do anything about it, so that night, I saw him up to the Treanon and he asked me if I wanted to go some place else and make some money; I told him, well, I didn’t know.

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Related

Honeycutt v. State
1967 OK CR 154 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma, 1967)
Brigman v. State
1960 OK CR 18 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma, 1960)
Payne v. State
1958 OK CR 62 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma, 1958)
Clark v. State
1958 OK CR 59 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma, 1958)
Woody v. State
1951 OK CR 155 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma, 1951)
Edwards v. State
1949 OK CR 125 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma, 1949)

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Bluebook (online)
1948 OK CR 22, 190 P.2d 828, 86 Okla. Crim. 241, 1948 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 153, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/rushing-v-state-oklacrimapp-1948.