Thomson v. State

1984 OK CR 41, 676 P.2d 857, 1984 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 157
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma
DecidedJanuary 26, 1984
DocketF-83-401
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 1984 OK CR 41 (Thomson 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
Thomson v. State, 1984 OK CR 41, 676 P.2d 857, 1984 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 157 (Okla. Ct. App. 1984).

Opinion

OPINION

BUSSEY, Presiding Judge:

Charles Martin Thomson, appellant herein, was convicted in the District Court of Oklahoma County, Case No. CRF-81-4366 of Robbery with Firearms, After Former Conviction of a Felony. He was sentenced to fifteen years’ imprisonment, and appeals.

Evidence adduced at the appellant’s trial was as follows:

At approximately 12:30 p.m. on September 23, 1981, the Handy-Pak convenience store at N.W. 13th and Broadway in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma was robbed at gunpoint. The person who robbed the store was a man approximately 5 ft. 6 or 7 in. tall, weighing approximately 140-150 pounds, having a thick mustache and although otherwise clean-shaven, having a heavy “shadow” of a beard. He was wearing an undersized blue baseball cap and a black wig on his head, a large pair of multicolored ladies sunglasses over his eyes and a blue bandana handkerchief around his neck. This person was eating food which he had gotten from the store, without having paid for it, which caused the manager to observe him. When he noticed the manager watching him, the man assured him he would pay, and continued watching a video game.

Shortly thereafter, the man held a pistol to the stomach of the person playing the video game, and forced him up to the counter. The robber instructed the manager and a clerk to give him money from the cash register and a bag of receipts. He made the three persons lie in the floor, and ran away.

Two persons approaching the store in an automobile saw the man running away, and deduced that he had just robbed the store. They followed him in their car until they Saw him get into a white Plymouth or Dodge bearing Oklahoma license tag number YJ 1775. Three other persons were in the white car. The two citizens reported their observations to the police.

While investigating an unrelated incident the next day, Oklahoma City Police Officer Charles Moore observed a white Dodge automobile with Oklahoma license tag number XJ 1775. He contacted the officers investigating the Handy-Pak robbery, and was informed the car had been linked to the robbery.

Officer Moore found the apartment where neighbors reported the person(s) associated with the car were located. The owner of the car, Cloe Bell Jackson, was inside the apartment.

As he stood inside the apartment talking to Ms. Jackson, Officer Moore saw several wigs, including a black one; a blue bandana handkerchief; and a pair of ladies’ multicolored sunglasses. These items were subsequently taken into custody. Ms. Jackson was later arrested in connection with the matter.

Officer Glen Mullins testified that he was informed by Ms. Jackson that on September 23, she loaned the car to a person matching the description of the robbery suspect. She informed him that the person to whom the car had been loaned resided at the Thunderbird Pre-Release Correctional Center (hereinafter called the TCC) in Oklahoma City. Officer Mullins went to TCC, and matched the suspect description with photographs there. He selected the appellant’s photograph.

*859 Officer Mullins assembled a photographic lineup consisting of five pictures, including the appellant’s, and showed it to various witnesses. Several of the persons selected the appellant’s photograph as the person who robbed the store.

A warrant for the appellant’s arrest was then issued. He was arrested thirty days later in Tulsa.

The appellant took the stand in his own defense. He testified that, at approximately 9:30 on September 23, 1981, he left TCC on a state van for a job interview at N.W. 122nd Street and May. He stated that he filled out an application and talked to someone there between 11:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. He then called TCC and was informed that he could not be picked up by a van until 2:30. Instead of waiting, he hitchhiked back to TCC. He arrived at TCC at 1:15. He was paroled at 2:15, that afternoon.

He also testified that in 1978 he committed 13 felonies, and pled guilty to three of them.

The appellant testified upon cross-examination that his application for employment at the business on 122nd Street and May Avenue could not be found, because the business had changed management. He also testified that the man with whom he interviewed, Mr. Phillips, could not be found.

The appellant’s second witness was Robert E. Thomas, a Department of Corrections employee. Thomas testified that, on September 23, all the persons going for job interviews left TCC at 9:30 a.m. Later, the appellant called him at TCC, and asked permission to go on a second interview. Thomas did not know what time he received the call. Thomas informed the appellant that he had been paroled. The appellant replied that he would be right in. The appellant arrived at TCC at 1:15.

Upon cross-examination, Thomas acknowledged his records reflected that the person the appellant claimed to be interviewing with at 12:30 p.m. had checked into TCC at 12:00 p.m. Thomas also testified upon cross-examination from documents that the state van delivering TCC residents to job interviews stopped at the business on N.W. 122nd Street and May at 11:45; and that the van was called to 5th and Robinson, which was seven blocks from the crime scene, at 12:10 p.m.

The appellant’s third witness was Joseph B. Rice, the driver of the van in issue on September 23. Rice testified that according to the records he kept, he dropped the appellant off at the N.W. 122nd and May Avenue business at 11:45 a.m. that day.

Upon cross-examination, Rice admitted having two forgery convictions. He also stated that he had earlier told two investigators from the District Attorney’s office that he did not remember whether the appellant was on the van on September 23. He testified upon re-direct examination that he did not recognize the appellant’s name, but that a picture refreshed his memory, and he recalled the appellant being on the bus that day. He also stated that there were no persons on the van when he drove it to 5th and Robinson.

The appellant’s third witness was John Hoagland, a corrections officer at TCC. On direct examination, he stated that the van was at 122nd Street and May Avenue at 11:45 a.m. and at 5th and Robinson at 12:30 p.m.

The appellant’s fourth witness was his mother, Bell Thomson. She testified that the appellant had changed for the better since his incarceration.

The appellant’s final witness was his fiancee, Carla Rene Fowler. She testified that she picked the appellant up at TCC at approximately 2:00 on September 23, because he had been paroled. After relating the events surrounding his arrest, Fowler stated that she went to visit the appellant in the Oklahoma County jail, and was directed to the cell of a man named Charles Major Thomson. She said the man had the same birthdate as the appellant, and was *860 also being held for robbery, but that he was not of the same race. 1

The State introduced the rebuttal testimony of Department of Corrections employee Richard Seagle.

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1988 OK CR 64 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma, 1988)
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1988 OK CR 33 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma, 1988)
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Parks v. State
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Parsons v. State
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Smith v. State
1986 OK CR 158 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma, 1986)

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Bluebook (online)
1984 OK CR 41, 676 P.2d 857, 1984 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 157, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/thomson-v-state-oklacrimapp-1984.