Part 15
The state used about twentyfive of ninety summoned witnesses, attempting to corroborate the accomplices' stories with additional testimony from five witnesses on the final day. Sellman did not take the stand, and the defense called no witnesses. The state struggled with the credibility of its witnesses due to inconsistent testimony, which undermined the prosecution’s case and highlighted a failure to meet corroboration requirements. Even the San Angelo Morning Times on November 7, 1934, Pages 1,12 called the trial and verdict even before it went to the jury: WITNESS GIVES WRONG ANSWER; SAN SABA PROSECUTION FALTERS.
Hamrick Says No When He Was Supposed To Say Yes And Grand Jury Testimony Barred At Trial. By SAM ASHBURN.
SAN SABA, Nov. 6.—Clarence Hamrick, restaurant counter man, was supposed to have placed the keystone in the structure of testimony against Nath Sellman, murder defendant, when he sat down excitedly in the witness chair this afternoon. He testified two minutes and when he arose the state’s case looked pretty much like a balloon in danger of a quick puncture. Sellman is charged with the death of Will Robertson in August 1933. Fielding Hammond, district attorney, asked Hamrick if he had seen Nath Sellman at 2 o’clock the morning of Aug. 6. The reply was negative; he did see him at 9 o’clock that night. Hammond asked permission of the court to read the testimony that Hamrick had given in the grand jury room when Sellman was indicted. Jim Baker, defense lawyer, objected and the objection was sustained. Judge Lamar Thaxton refused to permit Hammond to question the witness in reference to statements Hamrick was said to have made before the grand jury corroborating the testimony of Daniel and Lusty, accomplice witnesses, who appeared previously. Hammond said the purpose of the questioning was to impeach Hamrick and said that the action of the witness was not a surprise. In brief, Hamrick had said no when he was supposed to say yes.
SAN SABA TRIAL (CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1). ...the state rested for the day but will put on four or five more witnesses today. The case may not be finished until Saturday. Morris Lusty, accomplice witness, a 175-pounder in black boots, grey shirt and dungarees, lashed his hands through his black hair and roved his eyes about the room as he related his story of the night that resulted in the death of Robertson. He admitted that he had been promised immunity from prosecution, that he had been convicted of rape, but that the case had been reversed, that a bootlegging charge against him had been dismissed and that he had been charged in county court at one time with wife desertion. His testimony was that both Hamilton Brown and Nath Sellman had struck Robertson and that after Sellman hit the man, Robertson went down. Then Robertson was carried to a filling station, blood washed from his head and then the man was left lying against a lamp post near the San Saba National Bank, he said. Confused Witness The Thrill. Asked why he did not help Robertson, Lusty said it was “nothing to me what happened to him”. A woman just outside the railing sobbed. During the testimony of Lusty the defendant, Nath Sellman, looked constantly at the man who never gazed in his direction. As Lusty entered the room to testify there was a subdued rumble of talk, it was the big thrill the crowds had looked for. They got it, heard a confused witness. He was unlike Calvin Daniel, who the day before told a story that stood the attack of the defendant’s attorneys. Jim Baker, defense attorney, drew from Dr. Charles Phillips, state witness, a statement that either one of the two wounds on the head of Will Robertson, might have been caused by his falling from the San Saba Club room and striking an intermediate metal awning and that a second wound could have come from contact with that green lamp-post against which he lay when found that fatal August night two years ago. Jury Plays Tunes. Musical instruments were scarce in San Saba tonight for the members of the jury on their eighth day in the case, whiled away the evening with music from two guitars and fiddles. W. J. Robertson, 62-year-old father of the late Will Robertson, was not in court today. Ranger Joe Osoba and Frank Holland sat at entrances to the Courthouse to keep down any possibility of trouble, which was considered remotely unlikely.
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