Garcia v. State

492 S.W.2d 592
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Texas
DecidedApril 4, 1973
Docket45863
StatusPublished
Cited by21 cases

This text of 492 S.W.2d 592 (Garcia 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
Garcia v. State, 492 S.W.2d 592 (Tex. 1973).

Opinions

OPINION

GREEN, Commissioner.

In a trial before a jury on a plea of not guilty, appellant was convicted of murder. Her punishment was assessed at 27 years.

The appellant by ground of error contends that the court erred in failing to charge the jury on the issue of self-defense. An adequate and timely objection in writing to the omission of such instructions was filed.

The record reflects that at about 2:00 p. m. on August 28, 1970, appellant shot and killed her husband, Manuel Garcia, with a 12 gauge shotgun.

The State’s theory of the killing, as testified to by State’s witnesses, was that about 11:19 a. m. on August 28, appellant called the police department and asked : “What is the charge if I shoot my husband dead center with a shotgun ?” The response was “Murder.” Further conversation concerned trouble she stated she had with him “last night” when she had fired a shotgun blast through the ceiling of their bedroom.

Five minutes later, according to State’s witness, she called again, stating that the police should come to see that “this shotgun blast was in the ceiling.” A police officer went to the residence a little before noon, and reported that appellant told him that on the previous evening she and her husband had been fighting, and during the “shuffle” she had discharged a shotgun through the “roof” of the bedroom. He saw the hole in the ceiling and roof. Appellant asked him what would happen if she shot her husband, and was told that she would be charged with murder.

A bookkeeper at the business where deceased worked testified that about noon, while deceased was out, appellant called, was very excited, and asked to have her husband call home as soon as he came back. He returned to the office about 1:15 p. m., and called appellant, and then left, saying he was going home.

At about 2:15 p. m., the police got another call from appellant in which she said: “I just shot someone but I did not mean to.” The same officer who had previously been at appellant’s home went in [594]*594response to this call and found deceased in the bedroom shot in the stomach. Deceased told the officer that when he arrived home and entered the bedroom, appellant was standing on one side of the bed with a shotgun in her hands and as he walked over, “she let him have it.” He was taken to a hospital, where he died from his wound six days later.

With reference to whether or not an issue of self-defense was raised, the testimony of appellant, who took the stand, is in substance as follows:

About midnight of August 27, 1970, while she was asleep in bed her husband came home drunk and mad. He started shouting at her about some of their domestic troubles. She said he hit her a few times, and reached as if he was going to pull a knife 1 from his pocket and threatened to cut her throat. She turned around and picked up a shotgun and it went off and shot a hole in the ceiling.

The next morning, August 28, she called the police and told them that the preceding night her husband had threatened to cut her throat with a knife, and that she “just shot the shotgun in the ceiling, just to scare him.” That afternoon, the deceased came home about 2:00 o’clock mad and “cussing.” She was feeling sick, being to some extent under the influence of “pills,” and was lying on the bed in the bedroom. She testified as follows:

“A. (BY MRS. GARCIA at the blackboard) He come over to the side of the bed right about here on the corner, and I was still laying down. He was still standing over at me sort of yelling at me and he kept yelling and yelling. And he said, ‘Well, if you’re that sick, I’ll just end it right now.’ And he went in his pocket for his pocket knife, I guess, and I just rolled across like this in the corner and just reached and rolled back across the bed—
“Q. Wait a minute, what do you mean you rolled across ?
“A. Sort of got up. I’m sort of limber you know and I just rolled back here and I can reach the corner from the bed, put my hand on the wall like this. And I grabbed the shotgun and rolled back over when I got just about like I am right here, the little figure here. I got just about like this and was laying like this and the shotgun was like this and I don’t know if I had my hand on the trigger or not, but it slid part on. It was not all the way shut and it went like this and it went off and he got — I was about a foot, maybe not even a foot, about a foot and a half away.”

On cross-examination, she repeated that it was when deceased put his hand in his pocket and said, “if you’re that sick, we’re going to end it all right now” that she reached for the shotgun. She was lying on the bed, and “I rolled sort of forward and I grabbed it out of the corner, and then I rolled straight back the same way I got up.” She said the gun went off accidentally with its front end about a foot and a half from deceased, and that she did not mean to shoot him.

On re-direct, she gave this testimony:
“Q. (BY MR. ABRAHAM) When you went to get the shotgun what were you thinking ?
“A. Just to scare him so he’d stop and leave me alone. I felt bad enough without him jumping all over me about the bills and the doctor’s office and everything and the clothes and the dishes, the whole general situation.
“O. And, Mrs. Garcia, whenever he told you, I think you testified earlier, ‘Well, if you’re that sick, we may as well end it right now’ ?
[595]*595“A. Yes, sir.
“Q. How do you feel in response to that statement?
“A. Scared stiff.
“Q. What did you think was going to happen ?
“A. I didn’t quite know. I just wanted to scare him to leave me alone, you know.
“Q. Did you have any feelings as to whether or not he would try to harm you in anyway, cause you serious bodily injury?
“A. I was scared when he got mad no telling what he’d do.
“Q. Had he struck you on other occasions ?
“A. Yes, sir. And he knocked a hole in the wall before, too, just haul off and hit the wall.
“Q. Had he struck you on other occasions, too?
“A. Yes, sir.
“Q. Did you feel at that time when he told you ‘let’s just end it right now,’ did you feel he was going to cause you any serious bodily injury?
“A. Yes, sir.
“Q.

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Garcia v. State
492 S.W.2d 592 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1973)

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Bluebook (online)
492 S.W.2d 592, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/garcia-v-state-texcrimapp-1973.