Ekern v. State

200 S.W.2d 412, 150 Tex. Crim. 319, 1947 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 896
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Texas
DecidedJanuary 8, 1947
DocketNo. 23535
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 200 S.W.2d 412 (Ekern 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
Ekern v. State, 200 S.W.2d 412, 150 Tex. Crim. 319, 1947 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 896 (Tex. 1947).

Opinions

GRAVES, Judge.

Appellant was indicted for an assault with malice with intent to murder Clarence Arnold and was by the jury convicted of such an assault and assessed a term of three years in the penitentiary.

The charging part of the indictment reads as follows:

“* * * that Lincoln Ekern on or about the 17th day of October, A. D., one thousand nine hundred and forty-five and anterior to the presentment- of this indictment, in the County of Gray and State of Texas, did then and there unlawfully, with malice aforethought, shoot Clarence Arnold with a pistol, with the intent then and there to murder the said Clarence Arnold,” etc.

Appellant claims that this terminology fails to allege an assault with intent to murder as contemplated by the statute. We are furnished, among other cases, with that of Cooper v. State, 143 S. W. 355, 60 Tex. Cr. R. 411, as authority for this contention. We are not impressed with the applicability of this [321]*321case to the matter here in question. In the Cooper case, it was held that although the accused was charged with an assault with intent to murder, the trial court therein charged the jury that “an assault becomes aggravated when copimitted with a deadly weapon under circumstances not amounting to an intent to murder or maim.” Then follows an application of the law to the facts, still maintaining therein, in applying the reasonable doubt thereto, the phrase “to murder or maim.” It was held in that case that the charge of an assault to murder did not include an assault to maim, and a reversal was ordered therein. No such complaint is made herein.

In the case of Perez v. State, 22 S. W. (2d) 309, we have an indictment in the same words as the one in the present case. Judge Christian, of lamented memory, wrote the original opinion in which he upheld the indictment, but made note therein that the same was not challenged until in a motion in arrest of judgment and pretermitted a discussion of the question because the matter had not been properly presented in a motion to quash. Judge Lattimore, writing on the motoin for a rehearing, upheld the indictment but advised an avoidance of leaving out the allegation of an assault in so many words, and said:

“We do not regard it as a strained construction to hold that an indictment, which charges that P shot 0 with malice aforethought and with an intent to kill him, charges an assault with intent to murder. The omission of the allegation that P made an assault upon 0, and the omission of some description of the general character of the weapon used in so doing, is not to be commended but avoided.”

Under our reasoning, we are impressed with the idea that when one is charged with unlawfully and maliciously shooting another with a pistol with intent to kill, these words of themselves import and carry with them a charge of an assault with intent to murder. An assault is defined by Art. 1138, P. C., as being the use of any unlawful violence upon the person of another with intent to injure him, and we believe that the charging portion of this indictment clearly charges such an action upon the part of the appellant.

Complaint is also made of the paragraph of the trial court’s charge wherein there was presented the law of self-defense. It is said to be vague and confusing, and that it shifts the burden of proof to the appellant; also that it bases such defense on, what the jury believed concerning the acts and demeanor of [322]*322the injured party at the time of the shooting rather than what the appellant reasonably believes at such time. While this paragraph does seem to be complicated to some extent, nevertheless, the testimony of appellant as to this defense was itself complicated, and was based on a long association and various transáctions between himself and the injured person (his ex-stepson), and included, among other things, previous communicated threats, as well as domestic troubles, in addition to a plea of temporary insanity, and we confess our inability to see how such paragraph in such charge could very well be improved upon. It finally seems to convey to the jury that if they believed, or had a reasonable doubt thereof, that appellant reasonably believed that the injured person was making or about to make an attack upon him, as viewed from appellant’s standpoint, and that he was in immediate danger of death or serious bodily injury, or if they had a reasonable doubt thereof, then they should acquit appellant. It only demanded that the jury believe, or have a reasonable doubt thereof, that appellant reasonably believed that such facts existed, and not the belief of the jury as to the facts themselves. Such being our view of the proper construction of this paragraph, we see no error manifested therein.

Paragraph 4 of the trial court’s charge is attacked mainly upon the ground that in outlining the constituent elements of an assault with malice, as well as its punishment, the trial court failed to include therein the idea as conveyed by the phrase, “and not in his own self-defense”, or words of like character. It is to be noticed that in Paragraph 3 of such charge, the careful trial court had given a charge on the offense of murder with malice, and there was included therein the idea of self-defense. Then immediately in the succeeding paragraph, he merely intended to and did call to the jury’s attention the basic difference between an assault with malice and an assault without malice and the applicable punishment. Later on in the charge he followed this with a self-defense charge, unhampered with any further instructions, and authorized an acquittal under their belief, or a reasonable doubt thereof, in a certain belief upon appellant’s part. The court cannot and is not required to charge all the law in each paragraph of his charge, but such charge should be taken and considered as a whole; and an ordinary jury is expected to and surely does take the charge as a whole and considers it as such. The phrase, “and not in self-defense”, was not necessary in a presentment of the law. It was so held in Huntsman v. State, 143 S. W. (2d) 587; also in Griffin v. State, (our No. 23,405) not yet reported. (Page 28 of this volume.)

[323]*323Bill of Exceptions No. 5 complains because of certain argument of the District Attorney in his closing address to the jury as follows:

“And if Blake was here, gentlemen, I will bet he would get on this witness stand and he wouldn’t corroborate Lincoln Ekern that he told the defendant that Clarence Arnold had threatened Lincoln Ekern’s life.”

Immediately upon the making of such argument an objection was made thereto, and the trial court was requested to instruct the jury orally, as well as in writing, not to consider such remarks, at which time appellant’s attorneys prepared such requested charge and the trial court at such time gave such requested charge to the jury; nevertheless appellant insists that such remarks were of such a flagrant, damaging and harmful nature that their withdrawal by the trial court could not remove the effect thereof upon the minds of the jury.

True it is that appellant had testified that Blake had told him that Clarence Arnold had threatened appellant’s life; and it is also true that Arnold testified that he had talked to Blake, but that he had not threatened Ekern’s life in such talk, and it is also true that Blake was not present at this trial.

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Bluebook (online)
200 S.W.2d 412, 150 Tex. Crim. 319, 1947 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 896, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ekern-v-state-texcrimapp-1947.