Giles v. State

132 S.W. 359, 60 Tex. Crim. 436, 1910 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 527
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Texas
DecidedNovember 30, 1910
DocketNo. 835.
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 132 S.W. 359 (Giles 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
Giles v. State, 132 S.W. 359, 60 Tex. Crim. 436, 1910 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 527 (Tex. 1910).

Opinion

McCORD, Judge.

This is an appeal from a conviction for manslaughter with a penalty of four years confinement in the penitentiary. There are no bills of exception in the record and but one question is presented. In the motion for, a new trial complaint was made that the charge of the court on the subject of manslaughter did not submit to the jury for their determination all the facts and circumstances in the case, which the jury should consider in detormining whether there was adequate cause or not.

The facts disclose that in November, 1907, the defendant in this case shot and killed one Emmett Johnson, in Cass County, Texas. This killing occurred about three o’clock in the afternoon - at the home of one Jim Demmons, who lived a couple of miles from where *437 the defendant lived. The parties are all negroes. On the day of the killing the defendant went to the house of Jim Demmons and got Jim Demmons’ wife to write a letter for him to his wife, who was in Louisiana, and who had been there two or three months. While writing the letter defendant’s two brothers came to the house; one of them had a shotgun and left it sitting out on the gallery and went in the house. Shortly thereafter Emmett Johnson, the deceased, appeared, went into the house and they all had some conversation, the State witnesses contending that some jocular remarks passed between deceased and the defendant. Directly defendant called the deceased out of the house. They walked out of the front door on to the gallery where the gun was and directly the gun fired. Defendant shot the deceased in the head, killing him almost instantly, and as deceased fell defendant fired another shot. The defendant’s theory of the case was that when they got out on the gallery that defendant asked deceased if he had been to Louisiana and seen his wife, and deceased replied, “I have, and what are you going to do about it?” Some words passed, when defendant claimed that deceased rushed on him with a pocketknife, and that he grabbed up the gun and shot him. He offered some testimony that there was a pocketknife found open under the body of deceased after the killing. The theory of the State was that he called deceased out there and shot him and that deceased was doing nothing at the time. The testimony further discloses that the defendant suspected that the deceased had been intimate with his wife, and that deceased had gone to Louisiana to see his wife, and on the morning before the killing the defendant was at the deceased’s house and met a man there by the name of Young and proposed to sell him his crop, that he wanted to buy a gun, claiming that deceased had carried his wife off and that he intended to kill him. This was in the presence of the wife of deceased, and she, in the presence of 'Young, told the defendant that he need not be cutting up about his wife, and said, “You know you and Emmett agreed to swap wives and we agreed to it.” The defendant also proved that deceased had made threats against the life of defendant and said he intended to have defendant’s wife, and if defendant fooled with him he would kill him. The case was submitted to the jury in the court’s charge on murder in the first and second degrees, manslaughter and self-defense, and on the subject of manslaughter the court charged the jury as follows:

“Manslaughter is voluntary homicide, committed under the immediate influence of sudden passion, arising from an adequate cause, but neither justified nor excused by law. By the expression, ‘under the immediate influence of sudden passion,’ is meant: 1. The provocation must arise at the time of the commission of the offense, and that the passion is not the result of a former provocation. 2. The act must be directly caused by the passion arising out of the provocation. It is not enough that the mind is merely agitated *438 by the passion arising from some other provocation, or a provocation given by some other person than the party killed. 3. The passion intended is either of emotions of the mind known as anger, rage, sudden resentment or terror, rendering it incapable of cool reflection. 4. By the expression ‘adequate cause’ is meant such as would 'commonly produce a degree of anger, rage, resentment or terror in a person of ordinary temper sufficient to render the mind incapable of cool reflection. The following is deemed adequate cause: Adultery of the person killed with the wife of the person guilty of the homicide, provided the killing occur as soon as the fact of an illicit connection is discovered. The law itself makes the above adequate cause. Xow, if you believe from the evidence that Emmett Johnson had been guilty of adultery with the wife of defendant, or if you believe from the evidence that the defendant had been informed that Emmett Johnson had been guilty of adultery with his wife, and that he believed it, and that defendant shot and killed Emmett Johnson the first time he met him after he was so informed and believed it, then this would be adequate cause to reduce the killing to manslaughter. It makes no difference whether Emmett Johnson had in fact been guilty of adultery with the wife of defendant, if defendant was so informed and believed it, then it is just the same, as if he was in fact guilty of adultery with the Avife of defendant. If defendant had been informed that Emmett Johnson had been guilty of adultery Avith his wife and believed it was true, then to make this adequate cause you must bolieA-e from the eAddence that defendant shot and killed deceased the first time he met him after being so informed and after he believed it was true. In such cases the provocation does not arise at the time of the killing, but it arises before the act of killing. I further charge you, as a part of the Iuav of adequate cause, the folloAving: If you believe from the evidence that defendant had been informed that Emmett Johnson had been guilty of adultery Avith his Avife and thereafter he sent her off to DeRidder, Louisiana, and that he Avas afterwards informed that Emmett Johnson had gone to DeRidder to visit his wife, and that Avhon he met Emmett Johnson thereafter he spoke to him and asked him about it and that Emmett Johnson told him in substance that he had been to DeRidder and -had seen his AAdfe, and from all that lie said and his manner of talking and from all the evidence in this case you believe that what he. said, taken in connection with all the cA-idence in this case, Avould have commonly produced a degree of anger, rage, resentment or terror in the mind of a person of ordinary temper sufficient to render it incapable of cool reflection, then this would be adequate cause to reduce the killing to manslaughter.
“In order to reduce a voluntary homicide to the grade of manslaughter it is necessary not only that adequate cause existed to produce the state of mind referred to, that is, of anger, rage, sudden resentment or terror, sufficient to render it incapable of cool reflee *439 tion, but also that such state of mind did actually exist at the time of the commission of the offense.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

McDougal v. State
208 S.W. 173 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1919)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
132 S.W. 359, 60 Tex. Crim. 436, 1910 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 527, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/giles-v-state-texcrimapp-1910.