Reeves v. State

Gunter, Justice.

Ella Louise Carroll, Robert Reeves, and Willie J. Johnson, Jr., were tried and convicted of the murder of Chester Pitts and received life sentences. Separate trial counsel was appointed for each of the appellants, and the same three attorneys have represented them in their motion for new trial and in this appeal.

On April 4, 1974, Chester Pitts was fatally stabbed and thereafter died of the wound. There were no eyewitnesses to the stabbing; the victim, in dying declarations, identified a person other than the three appellants as his attacker; there was circumstantial evidence…