Jordan v. State

141 S.W. 786, 64 Tex. Crim. 187, 1911 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 553
Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas·Decided November 1, 1911·No. No. 1055.·Published·Cited by 14 cases

Opinions

PRENDERGAST, Judge.

The appellant was duly indicted by the grand jury of Eastland County, charging him with the murder of Dink Broughton on April 19, 1910. The venue of the case was properly' changed from Eastland to Taylor County in which latter county the appellant was tried in September, 1910, convicted of murder in the second degree, and given twenty-five years confinement in the penitentiary.

We will not state the evidence extensively, but instead, will state the conclusions therefrom which were clearly authorized by the evidence. The appellant and deceased were farmers, living about a half mile apart . at the time of the killing, and each had lived at their respective places for some years continuously prior to the killing. On the night of April 19, 1910, about midnight, the appellant, armed with a shotgun, went to the house of the deceased where he was asleep, and upon his going out of the house in response to appellant’s call, appellant shot and killed hiirp The appellant at once left, went to his brother’s some miles awa)r and told him what he had done, and wanted his brother to arm himself and assist him in resisting an arrest by the officers. The officers, early next morning, appeared on the ground of the deceased and appellant and hunted for appellant. Appellant not only fled, but resisted arrest, assisted by his son, both being armed with guns and fired at the officers and the posse attempting to arrest him as long as they had ammunition. The officers and the posse shooting at him many times. He shot and wounded—not seriously—one of the officers’ posse. Finally, about midnight, the night after the killing, the officers succeeded in overpowering and arresting the appellant. ■ The appellant, on the trial of the case, himself, had the sheriff and some of his deputies and the constable and others of the possee making the arrest, and the sheriff of Taylor County, where the case was removed upon change of venue, each and all to testify that after the arrest, appellant stated to each of them in effect that he had shot the deceased at the time charged. This evidence introduced by appellant was for *189 the purpose of showing what the appellant said in connection with the statement that he had killed the deceased, as tending to show1 his insanity at the time of the killing and their evidence had more or less tendency to show this. Notwithstanding, appellant, in his brief, claims that it was not clearly shown, except by circumstances, that appellant killed the deceased, as charged, yet, from all the evidence, and the manner in which the trial was conducted, it sems to have been practically and actually conceded by appellant on the trial that he had done the killing and the evidence altogether, we think, clearly shows this by both the witnesses for the State and for the defendant.

Appellant’s principal, if not his only, defense was his claimed insanity at the time of the killing. The appellant not only claimed that he was insane then, but had been, in effect, continuously for, at least, if not more than sixteen years prior to the killing, and among other things, showed that he had been properly convicted of lunacy in August, 1901, in the County Court of Eastland County, Texas, and was then confined in one of the State lunatic asylums for some one or two years under that conviction, but he was released therefrom and had been out of the insane asylum for some seven to eight years since his incarceration therein under said conviction of lunacy.

The appellant introduced much testimony and by many non-expert witnesses, of the conduct, acts and sayings of the appellant that tended more or less strongly to show that his claim of insanity for the whole period claimed by him was true and he introduced the testimony of legal experts, doctors, whose opinions were -that appellant was insane, and their testimony tended also to show that he was insane during the whole period claimed by appellant and even up to the time of the trial just prior to their giving their testimony.

The State introduced much non-expert testimony on the same subject, which tended to show that while the appellant was eccentric, quiet, and reticent, he was not insane at the time of the killing and at other periods and probably the whole of the period of the time that appellant claimed that lie was insane. From all the testimony, we are of the opinion that the jury could properly find and were justified in finding that the appellant was not insane at the time of the killing to such an extent as "to prevent his conviction in this case, and to justify their verdict of guilty.

The record is quite voluminous, there being nearly four hundred pages of typewritten matter therein. The appellant has some fifty bills of exception and more than seventy-five grounds in his motions for new trial, including in the motions, separate grounds for each separate bill of exceptions. The bills of exception are to the admission mostly—in a few instances, of the exclusion—of evidence. The other grounds of the motion for new trial are attacks upon "the charge of the court. In his attacks upon the charge of the court, practically, if not actually, every paragraph, and in some instances, some sentences, of the charge are attacked. Besides an able and vigorous oral argument by appel *190 lant’s attorneys on the submission of the case, they have filed an able, forcible, and full written brief in the case.

It will be unnecessary for us to take up in detail and discuss either, the various bills of exceptipn, or the attacks on the charge of the court as it would serve no useful purpose in this, case or any other, to' do so. The appellant’s several attacks on the charge of the court are based, to some considerable extent, on the dissenting opinion of Judge Hurt in the case of King v. State, 9 Texas Crim. App., 615, and he cites some authorities outside of the State and among them, one U. S. Supreme Court decision, which takes the same view of the legal -presumption of the sanity of an accused as Judge Hurt did in the King case; but this court, uniformly, not only in the King case, but in cases prior thereto and in every case since, where the question has been raised, has held the reverse, expressly, of what Judge Hurt, in his dissenting opinion, held in that case, and we approve the decisions to that effect.

In some grounds of appellant’s motion for new trial, he attacks the - charge of the court on murder in the first degree. He seems not to present them in his brief in this case. We have examined the charge of the court on that subject and it is strictly in accordance with the statute and decisions of this State, and it was necessary and proper that -it should be given, but even if there had been some error in it, as appellant was convicted only of murder in the second degree, any error in the charge of the court on murder in the first degree would not cause a reversal.

Most, if not all, of the -other attacks on the charge of the court are upon different sentences and paragraphs of the charge of the court on the subject of insanity. As stated by appellant, this charge contains six typewritten pages. It is unnecessary for us to copy it or any portion of it. We have gone over it time and again and have compared it with the charge on that' subject in the case of. King v. State, 9 Texas Crim. App., 515, in which is laid down and approved by this court, what is denominated the “elaborate” form of charge on insanity, and with the charge of the court in Hunt v. State, 33 Texas Crim.

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Jordan v. State, 141 S.W. 786, 64 Tex. Crim. 187, 1911 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 553 (Tex. 1911).

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