Case ID: sw2d_72/html/1091-03.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "LATTIMORE, Judge.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

RODRIQUEZ v. STATE.
    No. 16858.
    Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.
    June 20, 1934.
    P. H. Woodard and John J. Pichinson, both of Corpus Christi, for appellant.
    
      Lloyd W. Davidson, State’s Atty., of Austin, for the State.
   LATTIMORE, Judge.

Conviction for burglary; punishment, two years in the penitentiary.

The state introduced two witnesses, each' of whom admitted that he was a principal and participant in the burglary here charged against appellant, and each detailed at length the manner and circumstances of the burglary. The trial court in his charge instructed the jury as a matter of law that these two witnesses were accomplices.

Aside from the two witnesses mentioned, the state introduced the owner of the alleged burglarized house, who testified to its bur-glarious entry and that his property was taken without his consent, etc. The state also introduced Detective Flint, who said that he recovered some of the stolen merchandise in San Antonio and some of it from witness Metaxes in Corpus Christi. He also said he arrested appellant and the other parties implicated. He did not claim to have found any of the property in possession of appellant, nor did he claim appellant to have made any criminating statement in connection with the case. The state introduced Metaxes, who said he bought the cigars and chewing gum from one of the accomplice witnesses above referred to, and that there were two other parties with him at the time, neither of whom witness could recognize or identify because it was in the nighttime and dark. The record is wholly devoid of any testimony corroborating that of the accomplices.

For this reason the judgment must be reversed, and the cause remanded; and it is accordingly so ordered.