Case Name: RICHARDSON v. STATE
Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
Jurisdiction: Texas
Decision Date: 1921-11-30
Citations: 235 S.W. 578
Docket Number: No. 6415
Parties: RICHARDSON v. STATE.
Judges: 
Reporter: South Western Reporter
Volume: 235
Pages: 578–578

Head Matter:
RICHARDSON v. STATE.
(No. 6415.)
(Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.
Nov. 30, 1921.)
Criminal law <&wkey;>535(2) — Extrajudicial confession insufficient alone to support convictioni.
An extrajudicial confession may be used to aid proof of the corpus delicti, but such confession alone is insufficient to support conviction.
Appeal from District Court, Stephens County; W. R. Ely, Judge.
A. F. Richardson was convicted of embezzlement, and appeals.
Reversed and remanded.
Mays & Mays, of Breckenridge, and J. F. Cunningham, of Abilene, for appellant.
R. G. Storey, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

Opinion:
HAWKINS, J.'
It was charged against appellant that he was the agent and employé, in the capacity of cashier, of the Farmers' & Merchants' Bank of Leeray (unincorporated), a joint-stock association, and as such officer and agent that he embezzled $6,000 belonging to said bank. Conviction followed; punishment being assessed at 2 years and 6 months in the penitentiary.
The record is before us without any bills of exceptions. Only one question is raised, and that is the sufficiency of the evidence to support the conviction, in that the corpus de-licti was proven only by the extrajudicial confession of appellant himself. The particular transaction under investigation seems to have been one in which appellant caused to be transferred to an El Paso bank $10,-000 out of the funds of the Leeray bank, and then authorized the El Paso bank to pay his individual note of $6,000 out of this fund. There is ample evidence in the record from more than one witness that appellant made statements to them which would support the state's contention. Not only that, but it appears from the record by his extrajudicial statements he not only was guilty of the embezzlement of the $6,000 in question, but. of a total of $50,000 or $60,000 of the Leeray bank's money. We have searched the record in vain to find any testimony, outside of the confession, which would show that the Leeray bank ever lost any amount of money, although it appears they secured the services of an auditor, disclosing his name; yet this auditor was never placed upon the witness stand. It does appear that the cashier who succeeded appellant testified about a draft which was drawn upon the Cisco bank for the sum of $10,000, in favor of the El Paso bank. The Cisco bank seems to have been a correspondent of the Leeray bank, and this was the ordinary manner of transferring funds; but it nowhere appears in the record, outside the confession, that any instruction was given by appellant to the El Paso bank to • appropriate any of the funds to the payment of his individual indebtedness, or that it was ever done.
We are at a loss to understand the condition of the record, unless it be an oversight attributable to a hurried trial of the case. The term of the court at which this case was tried ended on the 18th day of March, 1921. The record discloses that this case was tried on the 16th day of March, and the verdict of the jury is dated March 17, 1921, 2:50 a. m. It is not necessary to set out the evidence in detail, but an examination of the statement of facts will bear out the conclusion stated by us. It is well established that an extrajudicial confession may be used to aid the proof of thé, corpus delicti, but that such confession alone is insufficient to support a conviction. For authorities collated, see Branch's Criminal Law, § 235.
It follows that the judgment of the trial court must be reversed, and the cause remanded.