Court Opinion

ID: 9727282
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 13:29:08.719717+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:35.864255
License: Public Domain

Concurring and Dissenting Opinion
DeBruler, J.
Like my colleague Prentice, I concur with the majority in the case of Donald Grayfield Harris, but dis*345sent in the case of Leonard Harris. However, I feel that I must make separate comment on the absence of evidence in the record to support conclusions reached by the majority.
During the trial of Leonard Harris, the victim testified that she was held up by two men at gunpoint and that they left in a 1961 White Chevrolet. She made no mention of a third man in the car. She indicated that the defendant “looked like” one of the men in the restaurant, but she could not say definitely that he was present, admitting that she did not know. The arresting officer testified that he stopped a white 1961 Chevrolet about one mile from the robbery scene. Leonard Harris was driving the car and there were two passengers riding with him. The officer testified that he placed them under arrest for robbery and searched the car. However, no evidence of an incriminating nature was found or introduced against the appellant in this case.
Unlike the previous trial, there was no evidence in this case that placed the appellant at or near the scene of the robbery; no evidence of any inculpatory statement by the appellant; no evidence that anyone else in the car was connected with the crime; and no evidence that any proceeds of the robbery were found in the car. Restricting our review to the evidence actually introduced at this trial I can find no evidence from which a trier of fact could infer beyond a reasonable doubt that the appelllant had any relation to the robbery in question. Thus, the evidence presented by the State against Leonard Harris is not sufficient to support a conviction, and in my opinion he should be discharged.
The majority states and finds great significance in the fact that Leonard Harris said he had been playing pool before the stop while the officer testified that he saw the car pass the pool hall prior to the apprehension. There are two rather obvious problems with this interpretation of the record of the Leonard Harris trial. In the first place, the officer admitted that he did not know where the car had been prior to the stop *346and that it could have gone around the block several times for all he knew. Secondly, the fact that the officers saw it pass the pool hall without stopping at the time they had it in view does not contravene anything said by the appellant, since the appellant did not say that he had been playing pool immediately prior to the stop. The inference that the appellant’s statement was an attempted alibi is unfounded on this record.
If the State had introduced evidence that indicated that the car or its other occupants were indeed connected with the robbery, and if Leonard Harris indeed had made statements to the effect that he had been playing pool just prior to the stop, then there would at least be some evidence to support this conviction. However, neither of these suppositions are supported by the record, and, therefore, the conviction of Leonard Harris should be reversed.