Lawrence v. State

157 S.W. 480, 70 Tex. Crim. 506, 1913 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 313
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Texas
DecidedMay 21, 1913
DocketNo. 2458.
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 157 S.W. 480 (Lawrence 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
Lawrence v. State, 157 S.W. 480, 70 Tex. Crim. 506, 1913 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 313 (Tex. 1913).

Opinion

*507 HARPER, Judge.

This is the second appeal in this ease, the opinion in the former appeal being reported in 63 Texas Crim. Rep., 93, 143 S. W. Rep., 636. In that opinion we held that the evidence on that trial called for a charge on temporary insanity produced by the recent use of ardent spirits, and also a charge on temporary insanity produced by the recent use of intoxicating liquors and drugs combined. The able trial judge who presided over the trial held to a different view and refused to submit either issue to the jury, and so strong was his conviction in the premises instead of submitting those issues he instructed the jury: “I instruct you that intoxication produced by the voluntary and recent use of ardent spirits will constitute no excuse in this State for a commission of crime, nor shall it mitigate the degree of the crime (if any), nor shall it mitigate the penalty of the crime committed (if any).” The court, giving this charge, evidently was of the opinion that the evidence showed that appellant was intoxicated, and we do not think any two minds can arrive at a different conclusion after reading this record, but he did not think the evidence raised the issue to that extent of rendering appellant incapable of knowing right from wrong, that is, it did not produce a mental aberration to the extent of rendering him temporarily insane. It may and should be conceded that evidence offered in behalf of the State would support a finding by the jury that appellant was sane and knew right from wrong at the time he killed Buchheit, but that is not the question here to be decided; the question before us is, did' the testimony offered in his behalf raise the issue that he may have been at that time so under the influence of intoxicants as to so affect him mentally as to produce a temporary mental condition which rendered him incapable of appreciating and knowing what he was doing at the time he shot and killed the deceased. We have, on more than one occasion, read the testimony, and can come to no other conclusion than that it raised that issue with such strength and cogency as to require its submission to the jury.

Beginning with the night before, when appellant was in Houston,' Charlie Smith testified he met appellant between 10 and 11 o’clock in the reservation. “I was standing on the corner when he came along by himself very much intoxicated. He was so drunk that he did not know me till I told him who I was. We were together from that time until the next morning at 9 o’clock. When I met him he said, ‘You are the very damn fellow I want to see.’ He had a bottle of whisky and we commenced drinking out of it. We drank the whole quart, and then went into a house and began drinking beer. We stayed in this house till daylight the next morning. When I met him he had a quart bottle of whisky. It was not quite full, a little gone out of it. He and I drank it all. We found this fellow Thompkins in the house and Lawrence introduced me to him. We emptied the bottle before we met Thompkins. We drank a good deal of beer, but do not remember just how much. We stayed there till about daylight. Lawrence was very drunk, and could hardly stand. Talked at random, cursed me out as *508 well as everyone else. The landlady took us upstairs and put us in a room where there was a bed and a couch. Lawrence lay across the bed and I lay on the couch. Directly he got to cutting up—got crazy— walked around the bed, catching hold of everything and trying to ¡mil the bed apart. I can’t repeat what he said,—he was talking out of his mind; then a woman came in and asked what was the matter with him, and she says, ‘I will quiet him,’ and she pulled up his sleeve and gave him a hypo; that quieted him for a while. This occurred about 4 o’clock .or somewhere like that time. Did not drink any more beer that night. Stayed there till about daylight, then left for town. Went to Davis’ saloon just outside the reservation and took several drinks, then caught a car and went down in town to Dubard’s saloon, where Lawrence had left some money, and he got his money and we took eight or ten drinks of whisky. Think we got there about 7 o’clock, and don’t know how long we stayed. He sent Thompkins to the depot with some package and we got on the car and went back to the reservation to the same house. When we got there he got to cutting up again and the same woman gave him another hypo. That was about half past eight. I got him away after we had drunk one or two bottles of beer. I told him if he was going to catch that train that he would have to hurry. We went back to Dubard’s saloon and I got him on the car and he cursed me because I would not go with him. I put him on a car that would take him to the Central depot. He was just as drunk as a man could get, and his mental faculties were not right -as he was cursing me for everything he could think of and wanted to fight everybody. I have known him for eight or ten years and when he drinks he becomes wild and unmanageable and will fight and abuse his best friend. I have seen him crazy drunk in Batson.”

A number of witnesses testified as to appellant’s condition in Houston and .they corroborate Smith. W. J. Thompkins, after testifying as to appellant’s condition in Houston, testified that when he got to the Grand Central depot in Houston the next morning he was pretty drunk, and did not recognize him at first. That he pushed appellant on the train, and then adds: “We went into the train, took a bottle of whisky, went to the closet and opened the whisky and each of us took a drink; we drank quite a number of drinks between Houston and Bay City. No one else drank with us; we emptied one quart bottle and had opened the second one and drunk a good deal of it. I don’t know just how much was left in the second quart bottle when we got to Bay City. I had kinder forgotten where I was going when I reached there. I was arrested at Bay City and taken off the train by the marshal for drinking whisky on the train. I was pretty full myself and Lawrence was pretty full. We had drunk one whole quart of whisky and a right smart out of the second bottle when we reached Bay City and I was taken off the train.” Appellant remained on the train until it arrived at his home in Markham, when his wife, Mrs. W. W. Lawrence, testified that shortly after the train arrived (between 2 and 3 o’clock) she saw her husband stand *509 ing by the corner of the rice mill acting like someone that was crazy; that she and her children went after him and carried him home and put him to bed; that he would jump up and down and acted like he did once before when he was crazy from whisky, and his eyes were jumping in his head. That after a while he went to sleep. A drayman brought nine quarts of whisky to the house. About 4 o’clock Jim Eyan came and woke appellant up (over her protest). The record does not disclose that prior to this visit of Jim Eyan appellant ever had any ill-will towards deceased, Buchheit, but had him in his employ as a trusted employe and had left his business in Buchheit’s hands when he went to Houston. The record further discloses that Eyan desired Buchheit’s position and reported matters about Buchheit to appellant, and persuaded appellant to go to town,, and then the telephone message occurs upon which the State relied to show motive, etc., in this case.

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Related

Haag v. State
223 S.W. 472 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1920)
Morris v. State
198 S.W. 141 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1917)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
157 S.W. 480, 70 Tex. Crim. 506, 1913 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 313, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/lawrence-v-state-texcrimapp-1913.