Court Opinion

ID: 9654525
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 18:24:31.155615+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:10.258569
License: Public Domain

WOODLEY, Judge.
The offense is murder; the punishment, 99 years.
Gwendolyn Christine Einkauf, a housewife and mother of two daughters, one 10 and the other 12 years old, talked to her husband by telephone about 11 A.M. His calls beginning shortly after 3 P.M. were not answered, and the two daughters were unable to get their mother to respond to their telephone calls between 3 and 4 P.M. The girls then walked to their home and found their mother lying crosswise on the bed dead. Her blouse was open and her clothes were pulled down around her ankles, leaving most of her body nude. There was blood around her mouth and nose and a smear of blood across the bed cover. There was no evidence of a struggle or that the deceased had been sexually molested.
The indictment alleged that appellant killed the deceased by choking and strangling her with his hands.
The testimony of the County Medical Examiner was to the effect that death was the result of manual strangulation.
A written statement was offered in evidence as the voluntary confession of the appellant. The warning required by Art. 727 V.A.C.C.P. appearing at the beginning of the statement was, according to the state’s witness, properly given and the statement was made voluntarily.
After a hearing before the court in the jury’s absence, at which appellant and other witnesses testified and fact issues as to vol-untariness were raised, the statement in which appellant confessed to having killed the deceased was admitted in evidence and was read to the jury.
Testifying before the court, and later before the jury, appellant repudiated the in-culpatory portion of the confession and denied that he killed the deceased, or that he told the officers that he killed her.
The evidence, including the testimony of the appellant and the written statement admitted in evidence as his voluntary statement, shows that he went to the home of the deceased after noon on the day in question as a repairman for her hi-fi set. It was his testimony that she was at the door as he left and that he did not touch her while there.
The state’s evidence shows that the dead body of the deceased was discovered some time after 4 P.M. The Medical Examiner fixed the approximate time of death as 2 o’clock P.M., plus or minus an hour.
The written statement contains the confession of the appellant that as he was getting ready to leave the deceased made advances and they went into her bedroom. It reads in part: “ * * * I grabbed her by the neck with my hands and I choked her. I held my hands around her neck ’till she quit moving. She didn’t fight me much, I grabbed her so quick she didn’t have a chance to fight. After I choked her down and she was laying on the bed I pulled her pedal pushers and her panties down * * * *135to look at her body. After this I left the house. * * * ”
In appellant’s original brief reversal was sought upon the ground that the trial court submitted the issue raised by the evidence as to the voluntary nature of the confession to the jury without first having resolved such issue. Jackson v. Denno, 378 U.S. 368, 84 S.Ct. 1774, 12 L.Ed.2d 908; Lopez v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 384 S.W.2d 345; Harris v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 384 S.W.2d 349; and Dixon v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 383 S.W.2d 928, were cited and relied upon.
We overrule this claim of error.
Subsequent to the filing of such brief in this Court a Supplemental Transcript and an additional Statement of Facts were forwarded to this Court by the clerk of the trial court containing findings signed by the trial judge on the issue of the voluntary nature of the confession based upon the testimony of the witnesses at the hearing before him bearing upon the facts and circumstances surrounding the arrest and the subsequent taking of the confession.
The trial court certifies that at the conclusion of the hearing the confession was admitted into evidence, he having found as a matter of law that it was voluntarily made, and the evidence having established beyond a reasonable doubt that it was freely and voluntarily made.
The findings of the trial judge and the evidence adduced at the hearing upon the voluntariness issue prior to the admission of the confession to the jury enables this Court, and will enable the Federal Court as well, to pass upon the question of whether appellant was afforded the federal rights to which he is entitled under Jackson v. Denno, supra, without further hearing on the issue of voluntariness.
In view of the Supreme Court’s holding in Henry v. State of Mississippi, 379 U.S. 443, 85 S.Ct. 564, 13 L.Ed.2d 408, we have concluded that the trial judge’s belatedly filed findings and certification should be considered.
The evidence shows that appellant signed the written statement some three hours after it was made and reduced to writing.
The confession introduced in evidence is typewritten, including the place for signature : “Signed - Clinton W. Delespine”
The written signature in the blank space is not clearly legible, but the evidence shows it to be appellant’s given name only.
Appellant testified that prior to signing the statement he was told he could see his wife and, believing that by signing his first name only the instrument had no legal effect, he signed it; that his father had always told him that an instrument had no legality unless it was signed by one’s full name and that he signed it only to be allowed to see his wife and to stop the officers from further interrogating him.
The jury was instructed in the court’s charge: “ * * * if you believe, or if you have a reasonable doubt, that at the time the defendant wrote the name ‘Clinton’, in manuscript form, if he did, at the conclusion of the alleged confession now in evidence before you, he did so not intending to sign the same then you will not consider it for any purpose.”
The state’s witnesses who were present when the statement was signed testified regarding the signing of the confession.
Officer D. M. Fults, to whom the statement was made, testified:
“Q. Is that what the Defendant wrote on there?
“A. Yes, sir, it is.
“Q. And when he wrote that on there, did you ask him anything?
“A. Yes, sir, I did.
“Q. And did you ask him anything about that signature — or, that writing ?
“A. I did.
*136“Q. And what did he tell you?
“A. He told me that’s the way he signs his name.
“Q. That that was his signature?
“A. That that was his signature.

“Q. Did he tell you at the time that he wrote that on there that that is no good because that is not his signature, and in order to make an instrument legal, he would have to sign his signature to it?
“A. He told me at that time that that was his signature — that’s the way he writes his name.”
Charles Schneider, III, reporter for the Houston Post, a witness to the signing of the statement, testified:
“Q. As a newspaperman, signing your signature as a witness to an instrument, did you question why only the name ‘Clinton’ was written on there?
“A. Yes, sir, I did.
“Q. And what was told to you?
“A. Well, as I recall, I asked — I remember that Mr. Delespine scrawled out the ‘Clinton’, and I was watching him as he scrawled it.
“If I am not mistaken, he signed it with his right hand, and I was standing to his left — I am not going to say where I was standing, as I can’t recall for sure — anyway, I watched him as he signed the thing, and I asked him —I said, — I looked at it and I said, ‘Aren’t you going to sign the rest of it?’, and he said, ‘No, that’s the only way that I ever sign my name.’
“He said, “That will do. That’s enough. That’s my name. That’s all you need.’
* * * * * *
“Q. Did you héar this Defendant say that it was no good because he only signed his first name to it ?
“A. No. In fact, he told me that was all that was needed.”
Kent Demaret, Assistant City Editor of the Houston Press, who also signed the confession as a witness, testified:
“Q. Did you, as a newspaper man, question the fact that only the name ‘Clinton’ was written on it?
“A. No, sir, I didn’t; I knew why it was written.
“Q. Sir?
“A. I knew — I didn’t have to question him.
“Q. You knew?
“A. Yes, sir.
“Q. What do you mean ‘you knew’?
“A. Well, I had been with Clinton for about two hours, and I saw him sign his name and say ‘That’s enough, that’s the way I’ — generally, and I am not quoting verbatim, because I don’t remember that well, but generally, ‘that’s the way I sign it’, or ‘that’s the way I do it’, or ‘that’s the way it’s going to be’, or something like that.”
The rule subscribed to in most jurisdictions, cited with approval by this Court in Bustillos v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 213 S.W.2d 837, appears to be that one may employ any character, figures or designation he considers proper to use as a signature and will be bound thereby, provided he uses it as a substitute for his name.
One “signs” a document when he writes or marks something on it in token of his intention to be bound by its contents. In the case of an ordinary person a signature is commonly performed by subscribing his name to the document — but any mark is sufficient if it shows an intention to be bound by the document.
A signature may be made by the use of only the Christian or given name of the *137person signing. 80 C.J.S. Signatures § 3, p. 1288.
Art. 727 C.C.P. recognizes the signing by-mark when the defendant is unable to write his name, but requires in such event that the statement be witnessed by some person other than a peace officer who shall sign the same as a witness.
We are aware of no case where a confession has been held to be inadmissible because the defendant who made and signed it did not sign his true name.
Two witnesses other than peace officers witnessed the signing of the confession by appellant and heard his statement regarding his usual signature being his first name only. Had appellant been unable to sign his name, his mark would have been sufficient. Appellant’s contention that the confession was inadmissible because it was not signed is overruled.
Other grounds for reversal are presented by additional brief of the appellant.
The indictment alleged that the deceased was killed by strangulation by the use of the hands.
The Medical Examiner, whose qualifications were stipulated and proved, testified as to the results of the autopsy and his complete external and internal examination of the body of the deceased and he was asked, and answered:
“* * * Were you able to determine from your examination how the deceased, Gwendolyn Christine Einkauf, met her death ?
“A. I was — I did, rather, Yes, sir.
“Q. And what was that?
“A. The cause of death was asphixia due to manual strangulation.”
Objection was made to the use of the word “manual” in the expert’s opinion, but no motion or request for instruction to the jury to disregard the answer was made.
The Medical Examiner agreed that the injuries present in the neck of the deceased, including hemorrhages and swelling around the larynx and fracture of the hyoid bone, could have been inflicted by choking with means other than the hand or hands. No such other means was suggested.
The expert witness testified without objection:
“q. * * * j)0 y0U have an opinion, from the injuries that you observed on the body of Gwendolyn Christine Einkauf, that you have described as causing her death — the length of time that this manual strangulation, with the hands, the pressure that would have been exerted by the hands on the throat of Gwendolyn Christine Einkauf to have caused these injuries and her death?
“A. Yes, sir, I do.
“Q. And what is that?
“A. It would be my opinion, on the order of two and a half to three minutes.
“Q. And that would be two and a half to three minutes of steady pressure?
“A. Yes, sir.”
We find no reversible error in the overruling of appellant’s objection to the use of the word “manual” in his expert opinion.
Appellant complains that a witness called by the defense to testify on the admissibility of the confession before the court was called by the state for further cross-examination before the jury and the state was allowed to ask leading questions.
The propounding of leading questions seldom constitutes ground for reversal. We do not agree that prejudice is shown.
*138Appellant next contends that the court should have ruled as a matter of law that the statement was not a voluntary confession.
We overrule this contention and point out that “an issue as to the voluntary nature of the written statement was raised by the evidence,” as stated in appellant’s original brief, which issue the trial judge, and thereafter the jury, resolved against appellant.
The state’s evidence is deemed sufficient to sustain the finding of the trial judge and the jury that the confession was voluntarily made and signed after warning which complied with the statutes. Art. 726 and 727 V.A.C.C.P.
If appellant’s testimony be true he did not confess to killing the deceased and did not voluntarily sign the written statement in which such confession appears. If the testimony offered by the state is true, the confession was voluntarily made and the sole question is whether the written statement was “signed” as required by Art. 727 V.A.C.C.P. We hold that under the evidence it was so signed.
The remaining claim for reversal relates to the introduction in evidence of a coat found in appellant’s home upon which were specks of blood, not visible to the naked eye. It is contended that the coat was seized from appellant’s home as the result of an illegal search.
The state’s evidence was that the appellant gave the officers permission to get the clothes at his home. We overrule the contention that the coat was obtained as the result of an illegal search.
The evidence is sufficient to sustain the jury’s verdict and we find no error which would warrant reversal.
The judgment is affirmed.