Court Opinion

ID: 9771448
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 16:43:49.445302+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:31.559711
License: Public Domain

Ed. F. McFaddin, Associate Justice, dissenting. Since several questions are presented in this case, I think it may be worthwhile for future reference that I state the reasons for my dissent. I think the judgment should be affirmed for these reasons: (1) Mary Salmon was not an accomplice as a matter of law. It was a question of fact for the jury to decide as to whether or not she was an accomplice. If the jury should find that Mary Salmon was not an accomplice, then her testimony would not have to be corroborated. (2) If the jury should conclude that Mary Salmon was an accomplice, then her testimony would have to be corroborated; and I think there was ample evidence of corroboration to support the jury verdict: (a) Mary Salmon testified that Marvin Sanders took a pistol from the glove compartment of his car as he started toward the liquor store. B. J. Wilson testified that the man who robbed him stuck a pistol in his back. Wilson described the pistol. (b) Mary Salmon testified that when Froman returned to the car, she asked where Sanders was, and that Froman went back and was gone a short time and Sanders returned with him. Wilson testified that one of the robbers stopped long enough after committing the robbery to select a bottle of whiskey and that the other robber came back for him. (c) Mary Salmon testified that after Froman and Sanders had re-entered the car, Sanders stated that he had torn the telephone off the wall in order to prevent the Wilsons from calling the police. It was testified by Wilson and other witnesses that the telephone was torn from the wall. (d) Mary Salmon testified that Froman and Sanders had something over $190 in currency, half dollars, and quarters, when they counted the money in her presence. Wilson testified that the robbers took $196 in currency, half dollars, and quarters. The corroboration did not merely go to show that a crime was committed; it went to show that Froman and Sanders had committed the particular robbery here involved ; and I think this evidence corroborates the testimony of Mary Salmon even if the jury had found that she was an accomplice. In the concurring opinion in this case it is stated that there was error in Instruction No. 10 as given by the Court. I find no error.1  Therefore, I conclude that the judgment of conviction should he affirmed.   So that there can be no misunderstanding about the Instruction No. 10, I copy Instructions 9 and 10 as given by the Court; and I find no error in them: COURT’S INSTRUCTION NO. 9. “Therefore, if you find from the evidence in this case under the instructions herein given that Mary Salmon was an accomplice to the crime, then you will consider the following instruction:” COURT’S INSTRUCTION NO. 10. “You are instructed that one may not be convicted of a felony upon the uncorroborated evidence of an accomplice. You cannot, therefore, convict the defendants upon the testimony of said witness, Mary Salmon, unless you find her testimony is corroborated by other evidence in the case tending to connect the defendants with the commission of the crime; and the corroboration is not sufficient if it merely shows that the crime was committed and the circumstances thereof. But you are instructed that the amount of such corroborating evidence and its weight is a matter solely for the jury, and if you find that such witness has been corroborated by evidence, positive or circumstantial, other than her own, tending to show that the crime was committed and connecting the defendants with its commission, you will be justified in convicting the defendants, provided you believe them guilty from all the evidence in the case and beyond a reasonable doubt.”