Court Opinion

ID: 9675126
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:42:42.333429+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:31.662621
License: Public Domain

WOODLEY, Judge,
(dissenting).
I am unable to agree with the majority either in their version of the evidence or their application of the law.
Nothing can be said for the deceased other than that he was a human being and had the right to live. He was a pimp, thief, burglar and narcotic addict. He had no legal right to complain that appellant’s clothes were in Winona Lee’s closet, or to question appellant’s authority to refuse him the use of Winona’s Cadillac, yet this was the reason for his “argumentative mood.”
On the other hand, appellant had no lawful right to spend the nights with Winona Lee; to keep his clothes in her bedroom closet and to assume authority over her automobile. If she did accord him that privilege, he had no right to get rid of Fulton because of his interference with his association with Winona.
The record shows that the motive for the killing of Fulton was to get rid of him, that he could no longer so interfere.
Appellant shot Fulton with a pistol, fired at close range, in the garage at Winona Lee’s apartment. The bullet caused his death within 30 minutes. His body was removed from the garage and buried in a thicket. All of the clothing was removed and a 2% inch opening was made in his side at the point of entrance of the bullet, in an effort to extract it.
*104Here are the facts implicating Beverly Thrash in. the murder:
Two days before the killing she acquired a Smith and Wesson .38 caliber revolver from a package store operator, who said it was not for sale. She was allowed to take it upon her statement that she “would like to try it.”
In the quarrel preceding the shooting she was involved. She told Fulton he was “too goofy” to drive an automobile, and he slapped at her. Winona started as if to get into the disturbance and when appellant told Beverly to take Winona out of the room before she got hurt, Beverly took Winona in the bathroom.
After she witnessed the firing of the shot and appellant had come out of the garage, put his arm around Winona, told her everything was all right, not to cry and led her back into the apartment, Beverly gave her several seconal tablets.
Appellant told Beverly to “go and see if Fulton is all right” and “to take Fulton a glass of water.” She went, and when she returned she said “Bill Fulton is dead.”
Beverly left the garage in the Cadillac belonging to appellant, who was driving.
Beverly was in the Cadillac with appellant when a Texas Highway Patrolman stopped them and found a .38 caliber Smith and Wesson revolver, which was or looked like the one Beveñy had said she “would like to try,” under the driver’s seat.
The bullet taken from the body of Fulton had sufficient characteristics to cause the ballistic expert to express the opinion that it was fired from the pistol.
A shovel and some coveralls or overalls were found in the trunk of the car. The officer testified that appellant was intoxicated.
When, stopped by the patrolman Beverly and appellant were traveling toward Dallas from the vicinity where the nude body of . Fulton was found three days later in a shallow grave dug in a thicket.
It was in this state of the record that Winona was permitted to testify that in appellant’s presence Beverly suggested to her *105that, if questioned by the police, she should admit killing Bill Fulton and made the explanation referred to in the majority opinion.
Appellant’s response to the statement of Beverly was in action rather than in words. Beverly was the spokesman throughout, according to Winona. The court was careful to confine the evidence admitted to the acts and conduct of appellant and of Beverly in his presence.
Pursuant to the suggestion made by Beverly, in his presence; appellant drove Winona and Beverly to the vicinity where the body was found for the purpose of acquainting her with its location. She had been put to sleep by the seconal tablets Beverly gave her.
They had not reached the grave when they heard by radio that the body had been found.
As suggested by Beverly in appellant’s presence, Winona told Captain Fritz that she shot and killed Fulton. Shortly however, she retracted such confession and stated that appellant shot and killed him in the garage at her apartment and that she was present.
The trial judge correctly admitted the statement as that of a co-conspirator.
“When two or more are found acting together, with an unlawful intent in the commission of an offense, the common design and acting together makes them ipso facto conspirators.” Sinclair v. State, 159 Tex. Cr. R. 35, 261 S.W.2d 167, 171, quoting from Cox v. State, 8 Tex. App. 254, 255, 303.
When the husband and wife are co-conspirators, or when the evidence justifies such a conclusion by the jury, the declaration of the wife is not privileged under the statute, Goforth v. State, 100 Tex. Cr. R. 442, 273 S.W. 845.
The testimony of Winona as to the statement of Beverly made in appellant’s presence and acted upon by him was admissible as an implied admission, without regard to whether or not Beverly was a principal or whether or not the conspiracy to kill Fulton incompassed the disposal of his body and the destruction of the evidence.
“Where the statement is made in the presence of a party *106under circumstances that he heard and understood what was said, had an opportunity to reply and would naturally have replied unless he admitted the truth of the statement, his silence may be received as a tacit admission of its truth.” Texas Law of Evidence, 2d Ed., Sec. 1152.
The same rule has been referred to as conduct evidence; that is, testimony concerning statements made in the presence of the defendant may be admissible if the statement evokes a reaction by the defendant which constitutes an acknowledgment of guilt.
The statement of Beverly does not come within any exception to such rule, such as where the statement does not properly call for a response from the accused. Loggins v. State, 8 Tex. App., 434, 443.
The cases cited by the majority do not hold to the contrary.
In Brown v. State, 103 Tex. Cr. R. 420, 281 S.W. 210, the husband was under arrest. The above rule has no application under such facts.
In Story v. State, 107 Tex. Cr. R. 293, 296 S. W. 516, the statement was made in reply to the husband’s statement, and the wife who made it was not implicated in the killing which occurred the same day. The court found another ground for reversal which was referred to as “the most serious matter complained of” and did not reverse because of the admission of the wife’s statement.
In Ray v. State, 43 Tex. Cr. R. 234, 64 S.W. 1057, the opinion points out that the acts of the wife of the defendant, in attempting to conceal the stolen property,-were her acts, not those of the appellant. Declarations of the wife were not involved.
Hignett v. State, 168 Tex. Cr. Rep. 380, 328 S.W. 2d 300, is authority only for the proposition that the state is not permitted to call the wife of the defendant, who is incompetent to testify as a witness for the state.
My view of the evidence concerning Beverly’s complicity in the murder is fortified by the fact that appellant’s counsel requested and the trial court submitted the defensive issues upon the theory that Beverly shot and killed Fulton, and upon the theory that Winona shot and killed him.
*107The occurrence referred to in the majority opinion concerning the state’s claim of surprise, and the court’s failure to retire the jury and hear proof demonstrating the surprise, is easily explained by reference to Ex Parte Lawrence W. Thrash, 167 Tex. Cr. Rep. 409, 320 S. W. 2d 357.
In that case Captain Fritz testified that both Winona and Beverly told him that appellant shot and killed Fulton, and Beverly said that she attempted to remove the bullet with her hand and with Fulton’s knife, and that she and appellant took the body in the Cadillac to the place it had been found, and that she dug the grave. She also told Captain Fritz where they had thrown part of the bed sheet they had wrapped about his body.
Winona, according to Captain Fritz, related the statement that Beverly had made to her about which she testified, and also her statement as to her part in the disposition of the body and the destruction of the evidence, and both Beverly and Winona showed Captain Fritz where the parts of the sheet which he found were thrown.
The same able and conscientious district judge having presided at both trials, it is evident that there was no occasion to retire the jury when Winona gave a different version of Beverly’s statement and of her statement to Captain Fritz.
As to the so called suicide note, the fact of its being written after the trial rested upon the testimony and opinion of Beverly, at whose instance Winona had previously confessed to killing Fulton. The jury heard the testimony regarding Winona’s first confession and its repudiation. It is doubtful that another confession by her after she again came in contact with Beverly would result in a more favorable verdict before another jury.