Hodge v. State

OPINION

ROBERTS, Judge.

The appellant was convicted on two charges of robbery and was sentenced to sixty-five years’ imprisonment in each case.

Appellant raises a single ground of error in this appeal. In this ground of error, he urges that the court erroneously admitted evidence that he had escaped from custody.

The appellant was arrested on August 22, 1969, for the robberies involved in these cases. Indictments were returned on September 22, of the same year; however, the record reflects that on October 14, 1969, appellant was transferred from the custody of the Dallas police to the custody of police officers from Garland, Texas, for an investigation arising from an unrelated offense. While in the custody of the Garland police, appellant escaped.

At his trial for the offenses involved here, the evidence of appellant’s escape from the Garland police was admitted to prove guilt. This was error.

Ordinarily, evidence of flight or escape from custody is admissible on the issue of guilt. See Gonzales v. State, 492 S.W.2d 263 (Tex.Cr.App.1973).

However, this is not an ordinary situation, and has rarely arisen in this State. When it has, this Court has uniformly rejected such evidence on the ground that, absent some connecting circumstances, the evidence is not relevant. In Hicks v. State, 82 Tex.Cr.R. 254, 199 S.W. 487 (1917) this Court observed:

“ . . . The relevancy of such evidence [flight, concealment, escape and evasion of arrest] depends upon its relation to the particular offense or offenses involved in the trial, and it is not admissible to prove flight or escape as a circumstance reflecting upon the accused when it relates to an entirely different and disconnected charge or offense.”

The Court then held that in order for such evidence to be admissible it must be so closely connected with the offense on trial that it would be a relevant circumstance bearing upon the issue of guilt. As an example, the Court cited Buchanan v. State, 41 Tex.Cr.R. 127, 52 S.W. 769 (1899). In that case, a complaint charging incest was lodged against the accused, and in response to efforts to arrest him he took flight. He was subsequently recaptured and indicted for rape. At trial on the indictment, the evidence of his flight was admitted and his conviction was affirmed on appeal. However, the indictment was based on the same facts as those out of which the incest complaint arose.

In the instant case, it is admitted that the escape occurred while appellant was being held by officers of another city for investigation of an unrelated offense. Further, no evidence was introduced which would, in any way, connect appellant’s escape from the Garland police with the offense on trial. In the absence of this connecting evidence, no inference of guilt may be drawn from the escape since it may have been motivated by a sense of guilt arising from the other, unrelated offense. This Court has been unwilling to engage in such speculation. See Damron v. State, 58 Tex.Cr.R. 255, 125 S.W. 396 (1910); Torrence v. State, 85 Tex.Cr.R. 310, 212 S.W. 957 (1919); and Roberts v. State, 83 Tex.Cr.R. 139, 201 S.W. 998 (1918).

We now hold, in accordance with our earlier rulings, that in order for evidence of escape to be admissible in this situation the State must present evidence so connecting the escape with the offense on trial that it is reasonable to infer that the escape was motivated by that offense rather than some other, unrelated offense.

The judgment is reversed and the cause remanded.