Clifford v. State

424 S.W.2d 233, 1968 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 1043
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Texas
DecidedJanuary 10, 1968
Docket40887
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 424 S.W.2d 233 (Clifford v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Clifford v. State, 424 S.W.2d 233, 1968 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 1043 (Tex. 1968).

Opinion

OPINION

WOODLEY, Presiding Judge.

The offense is assault with intent to murder with malice; the punishment, 12 years.

The indictment alleged that appellant committed the assault in Deaf Smith County on or about April 8, 1966, by shooting Billy Joe Stevens with a gun.

The record shows without dispute that after shooting and killing his wife, at Canyon in Randall County, appellant drove to Hereford, in Deaf Smith County, and to Hereford Feed Mill where Billy Joe Stevens was employed and shot him at close range with a .22 caliber pistol loaded with hollow point bullets. Five shots struck Stevens in the head, one of which caused the loss of an eye. A sixth shot struck Stevens above the heart.

The evidence further reflects that appellant’s wife had left him and had sued for divorce and he was under a restraining order “to leave her alone and not to hurt her in any way.” Appellant testified that he had known since December 20, 1965, about Billy Joe Stevens having an affair with his wife. (The shooting occurred on April 8, 1966.)

The record further reflects that appellant had been indicted in Randall County for the murder of his wife; that the venue was changed to Denton County and that he had been tried and convicted. In the absence of the jury it was shown that a Den-ton County Jury had assessed his punishment at 2 years. (The sentence from which this appeal is prosecuted was cumulated with said 2 year sentence.)

Appellant testified to the effect that he did not remember anything that transpired concerning the shooting of his wife but realized that he had done something to hurt her, and testified:

“Q. What, if anything, did you do next?
“A. Well, I got in my car and I knew— I had that gun in my hand and I knew *235 here was this guy chasing me and I knew very well I had done something to my wife and all I could think about was getting this man that had broken up my home, ruined my life, my children’s lives and all this — and I went to Hereford.
⅜ ⅜ ⅜ ⅜ ⅜ ⅜
“Q. Did you see Billy Joe Stevens at the Hereford Feed Yard?
“A. Yes, I did.
“Q. Did you say anything to him ?
“A. I don’t remember saying a word to Billy Joe Stevens.
“Q. All right. What, if anything, happened next?
“A. Well, I guess I shot him out there at the Feed Yards and then I went and I give this pistol to this girl in this front office and asked her to call the sheriff.
“Q. All right. Did you have any conversation there with her?
“A. Yes, I had a conversation with this young lady.
“Q. What, if anything, was said?
“A. Oh, she said — asked me if I was kidding, I said, ‘No,’ that I was serious and she asked me why I would kill Bill Stevens and I said the man had torn up my home, ruined my life, my kids’ life, I even went on to tell her that if she was married that she didn’t have any idea what she could get into by running around with other men.”

We find no merit in appellant’s ground of error No. 2 which complains of the refusal of his requested charge on aggravated assault.

Appellant’s first and principal ground of error is: “The trial court reversibly erred when it failed to sustain appellant’s motion to change venue.”

Appellant’s brief points out that the trial which gave rise to this appeal began on February 6, 1967, in Deaf Smith County where the offense was alleged to have occurred on April 8, 1966, and evidence was taken relevant to his motion to change venue on October 1, 1966.

Numerous news articles were introduced, the first of which described appellant as “the son of a prominent Amarillo real estate agent,” and another referred to Billy Joe Stevens as “the nephew of a former Randall County Judge.”

The newspaper, television and radio coverage included stories of the murder in Randall County and the shooting in Deaf Smith County on April 8, 1966; the denial of bail and the change of venue and the trial and result of the trial in Denton County.

The motion for change of venue was not finally overruled until some 4 months after the hearing of evidence when the voir dire examination of the jury panel was complete and a list of 36 jurors had been furnished for the exercise of peremptory challenges.

None of the jurors whose names appeared on such list had an opinion as to the guilt or innocence of appellant, and none had been challenged for cause or objected to by the defense.

The record does not reflect that either the state or the defense exhausted their peremptory challenges or that appellant was required to accept any juror that was objectionable to him.

Under the test applied by this court in the recent cases of Cotten v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 406 S.W.2d 452, and Taylor v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 420 S.W.2d 601, the ground of error is without merit. See also Jones v. State, 156 Tex.Cr.R. 248, 240 S.W.2d 771; McCarley v. State, 161 Tex.Cr.R. 263, 276 S.W.2d 300; Philpot v. State, 169 Tex.Cr.R. 91, 332 S.W.2d 323; Moon v. State, 169 Tex.Cr.R. 14, 331 S.W.2d 312.

*236 Appellant cites and relies upon Pamplin v. Mason, 364 F.2d 1, wherein the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals said:

“In this case, therefore, we apply the Irvin holding with the gloss of Rideau, Estes, and Sheppard. The test is no longer whether prejudice found its way into the jury box at the trial, as the Texas court stated in the petitioner’s appeal. Mason v. State, Tex.Crim.App.1964, 375 S.W.2d 916. As we read the Supreme Court cases, the test is: Where outside influences affecting the community’s climate of opinion as to a defendant are inherently suspect, the resulting probability of unfairness requires suitable procedural safeguards, such as a change of venue, to assure a fair and impartial trial. As the Supreme Court stated in Sheppard v. Maxwell [384 U.S. 333, 86 S.Ct. 1507, 16 L.Ed.2d 600]:
“ ‘Due process requires that the accused receive a trial by an impartial jury free from outside influences.

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Bluebook (online)
424 S.W.2d 233, 1968 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 1043, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/clifford-v-state-texcrimapp-1968.