People v. Clifton

MOORE, P. J.

Convicted by the court without a jury of burglary in the first degree and sent to prison, appellant demands a reversal of the judgment on the ground that the evidence was insufficient to support a finding that he had committed a felonious battery upon the prosecutrix or had “the specific intent necessary to a burglary.”

Appellant had been the husband of Opal Saunders for more than seven years prior to their divorce in 1952. On January 17, 1956, at 10 p. m. he called at Opal’s apartment on Harcourt Street where she lived with her son, 10 years of age. When she answered the doorbell and asked him what he wished, he demanded that she open the door and said he desired to talk about “me and you.” She replied that the son had gone to sleep and that he and she had nothing to talk about and that she would not open the door. He retorted: “Are you going to open the door or do you want me to knock it down and come in and get you f ’ ’ On her refusal, he began to knock down the door. Opal ran to her child, took him out through another door and visited her neighbors, the Towns-ends. She heard the “crack of glass and the sounds of his breaking of everything” in her apartment. He broke the mirrors, dishes, china closet, buffet and furnishings of the

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living room and dining room. The police came in response to the call of the Townsends. She then returned home to find it “all torn up”; the front door was torn off, had to be replaced; the carpeting was bloody; the dishes, all the glass in the china closet and the mirrors were broken; glass was strewn all over the floor, food was over the curtains and the drain board was on the floor. The total damage exceeded $1,000.

Witness John C. Long was aroused by the sounds of destruction. Investigating, he saw appellant emerge from Opal’s apartment with a tire iron in his hand. He followed the staggering miscreant down the street about two blocks and witnessed his arrest. Officer Sentam who apprehended the marauder found him with a tire iron in his rear pants’ pocket, bleeding from cuts on his hand and face; not drunk, but his breath betrayed his consumption of alcohol. He told the officer that he had already been to the location on Harcourt; that he had broken into the house and smashed up the interior ; that his former wife lived there; that she belonged to him and he had been having trouble with her; that he knew his acts violated the law; that they might take him to jail but as soon as he got out he would do the same thing over again. “I’ll bust her up the same as I did the house.” As he stood on the Harcourt lawn he addressed Opal as follows: “I’ll kill you.” He told the police that he would not hurt “that boy” but he “would sure fix her up good; I would bust her up.”