Cook v. State

884 S.W.2d 485, 1994 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 46, 1994 WL 122844
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Texas
DecidedApril 13, 1994
Docket0424-92
StatusPublished
Cited by499 cases

This text of 884 S.W.2d 485 (Cook 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
Cook v. State, 884 S.W.2d 485, 1994 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 46, 1994 WL 122844 (Tex. 1994).

Opinions

OPINION ON APPELLANT’S PETITION FOR DISCRETIONARY REVIEW

BAIRD, Judge.

Appellant was charged with intentional murder pursuant to Tex.Penal Code Ann. § 19.02(a)(1) and was convicted by a jury of the lesser included offense of voluntary manslaughter. Tex.Penal Code Ann. § 19.04. The jury assessed punishment at twenty years confinement and a fine of $5,000. Tex.Penal Code Ann. § 12.33. The Court of Appeals affirmed. Cook v. State, 827 S.W.2d 426 (Tex.App. — Dallas 1992). We granted appellant’s petition for discretionary review to determine whether the Court of Appeals erred in holding the trial judge correctly refused appellant’s request to limit the definitions of the applicable culpable mental states to the result of appellant’s conduct.1 We will reverse and remand.

[486]*486I.

The decedent and two co-workers were searching for the decedent’s wife, when they saw appellant talking to the wife. The decedent confronted appellant and ordered appellant to leave. Appellant and decedent began to argue and shove each other. During the altercation, appellant stabbed the decedent in the chest with a knife. After stabbing the decedent, appellant said: “I didn’t mean to hurt you, man.” The decedent died as a result of the stab wound.

Appellant was charged with murder under Tex.Penal Code Ann. § 19.02(a)(1). The indictment alleged appellant

... knowingly and intentionally cause[d] the death of [the decedent], an individual, by stabbing [the decedent] with a knife a deadly weapon.

At the close of trial, appellant objected to portions of the definitions and application portions in the jury charge and requested the following limitations on the definitions of intentionally and knowingly:

MR. TINSLEY: The objection that I now make on the record goes to the definition of knowingly and intentionally, which happen to be defined for the jury in the abstract in the Court’s charge. And we object to the Court’s charge defining knowingly and intentionally as it reads under 6.03(a) and (b) of the code — of the Penal Code.
And the reason we object is that it is our theory that the crime of murder is a result offense, rather than a conduct offense, and we object because the Court’s charge does not limit the definition of both culpable mental states to the result of the offense only.
THE COURT: I’m going to overrule that requested charge.
MR. TINSLEY: Note my exception.

The trial judge then submitted to the jury the definitions of “intentionally” and “knowingly” as defined at Tex.Penal Code Ann. § 6.03:

(a) A person acts intentionally, or with intent, with respect to the nature of his conduct or to a result of his conduct when it is his conscious objective or desire to engage in the conduct or cause the result.
(b) A person acts knowingly, or with knowledge, with respect to the nature of his conduct or to circumstances surrounding his conduct when he is aware of the nature of his conduct or that the circumstances exist. A person acts knowingly, or with knowledge, with respect to a result of his conduct when he is aware that his conduct is reasonably certain to cause the result.
The application portions of the jury charge provided:
Now, if you find from the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that on or about the 27th day of July, 1990 in Dallas County, Texas, the defendant, LAWRENCE EARL COOK, did intentionally or knowingly cause the death of [the decedent], an individual, by stabbing [the decedent] with a knife, a deadly weapon, as alleged in the indictment, and that the defendant, in so acting was not acting under the immediate influence of sudden passion arising from an adequate cause, then you will find the defendant guilty of murder.
Unless you find beyond a reasonable doubt, or if you have a reasonable doubt thereof, you will acquit the defendant of murder.
If you find from the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that on or about the 27th day of July, 1990 in Dallas County, Texas, the defendant, LAWRENCE EARL COOK, did intentionally or knowingly cause the death of [the decedent], an individual, by stabbing [the decedent] with a knife, a deadly weapon, as alleged in the indictment, but you further find from all the facts and circumstances in the case that the defendant, in killing [the decedent], if he did, acted under the immediate influence of a sudden passion arising from an adequate cause, or if you have a reasonable doubt as to whether he so acted under the immediate influence of sudden passion arising from an adequate cause, then you will find the defendant guilty of voluntary manslaughter.
Unless you so find beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty of volun[487]*487tary manslaughter under the instructions given you, or if you have a reasonable doubt thereof, you will acquit the defendant of voluntary manslaughter.2

The jury returned a verdict of guilty of voluntary manslaughter and appellant appealed. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding there was no error in the jury charge because the offense of intentional murder required a finding of both an intent to engage in the conduct and an intent to cause the result. The Court of Appeals found that it would have been error to limit the abstract definitions of the culpable mental states as appellant requested. Cook, 827 S.W.2d at 430.

II.

This case involves the most basic and fundamental concept of criminal law, that in order to constitute a crime, the act or actus reus must be accompanied by a criminal mind or mens rea. Perhaps this concept was best explained by the United States Supreme Court many years ago in Morissette v. United States, 342 U.S. 246, 72 S.Ct. 240, 96 L.Ed. 288 (1952).

The contention that an injury can amount to a crime only when inflicted by intention is no provincial or transient notion. It is as universal and persistent in mature systems of law as belief in freedom of the human will and a consequent ability and duty of the normal individual to choose between good and evil ...
Unqualified acceptance of this doctrine by English common law in the Eighteenth Century was indicated by Blackstone’s sweeping statement that to constitute any crime there must first be a “vicious wifi.”...
Crime, as a compound concept, generally constituted only from concurrence of an evil-meaning mind with an evil-doing hand, was congenial to an intense individualism and took deep and early root in American soil.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
884 S.W.2d 485, 1994 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 46, 1994 WL 122844, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/cook-v-state-texcrimapp-1994.