McKinney v. State

8 Tex. Ct. App. 626
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJuly 1, 1880
StatusPublished

This text of 8 Tex. Ct. App. 626 (McKinney v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
McKinney v. State, 8 Tex. Ct. App. 626 (Tex. Ct. App. 1880).

Opinion

White, P. J.

On the presentation of defendant’s application for continuance, it was ascertained from the docket that it was a second one, and as such was defective in omitting to state, as required by statute, “first, that the testimony cannot be procured from any other source known to defendant;” and “second, that defendant has reasonable expectation of procuring the same at the next term of the court.” Code Cr. Proc., art. 561. Defendant’s counsel asked leave to withdraw it, that he might amend it in this regard, stating that he had forgotten or overlooked the fact that a previous continuance had by consent been granted as upon the application of and been charged to the defendant. It was and is also claimed that the former continuance, being one of consent, and not a formal one under the statute regulating first continuances, is not subject to the strict rules governing written applications, and should [636]*636not have the same force and effect against the party charged therewith.

Under a provision of the Code, “a criminal action may be continued by consent of the parties thereto, in open court, at any time.” Code Cr. Proc., art. 556. If it may be done by consent, then no reason is perceived why terms also cannot be stipulated for; nor why, if it be agreed that it should be charged to one or the other party, the agreement should not have the same force and effect in its burdens and liabilities as if the party had voluntarily entailed them upon himself by means of a written application granted by the court. Such verbal agreements to continue, before the above provision was incorporated into the Code, were recognized and enforced in practice in this State, and so far as we are advised have uniformly, when entered into with leave of the court, been held to be binding. Where a party is known to have sufficient grounds, as a matter of favor to him the opposite party may waive the written application on condition that the one so obtaining the benefit is duly charged with it. The writing is all that is waived, the other burdens and liabilities under the law remaining the same.

As we understand the bill of exceptions, this was the attitude in which defendant found himself before the court when he requested to withdraw and amend his application. To all intents and purposes his application was a second one, and clearly defective. Being a second one, the granting of his request, and not.only that, but even the granting of his continuance, had it been strictly formal, was a matter within the discretion of the court. The refusal to permit the amendment is not a matter subject to revision, and the refusal of a second continuance would only be revised in a case exhibiting the plainest abuse of judicial discretion.

One Charles Thompson was the witness to obtain whose ■ testimony the continuance was mainly sought. Subpoenas had issued for this witness at the instance of defendant, and. [637]*637had been served; but when the witness served made his appearance, it was discovered that he was the State’s witness Charles Thompson, and not Charles Thompson, the defendant’s witness, who had never been summoned, though he also was a resident of Travis County. Under these circumstances, defendant’s application might have been based upon another article of the Code, which provides that “a continuance may be granted on the application of the State or defendant, after the trial has commenced, when it is made to appear to the satisfaction of the court that by some unexpected occurrence since the trial commenced, which no reasonable diligence could have anticipated, the applicant is so taken by surprise that a fair trial cannot be had; or the trial may be postponed to a subsequent day of the term.” Code Cr. Proc., art. 568. A motion under this provision might, we apprehend, have been made after the application for continuance was denied, because the cause was then, in contemplation of law, on trial. Code Cr. Proc., art. 604. Further, the record shows that the trial lasted from the 13th to the 21st of November, before the case was submitted to the jury for verdict, and, for aught that appears, there was ample time during the interval to have had the witness summoned, being a resident of the county. Had he been summoned and put in an appearance during the progress of the trial, his evidence would doubtless have been admitted at any time before the argument was concluded. Code Cr. Proc., art. 661. Had he been summoned and failed to appear, the additional diligence used to procure his attendance might again have been urged, in connection with the supposed materiality of his evidence, on the motion for new trial.

As we have seen, however, the application was in fact a second one, which did not comply'with the legal requisites, and the court did not err in overruling it.

We are unable to see that any injury was done defendant with regard to summoning the special venire, as the matter [638]*638is exhibited in his second bill of exceptions. No complaint, is made that the twenty jurors summoned were not duly qualified, nor that in summoning them the officer acted corruptly (Castanedo v. The State, 7 Texas Ct. App. 582); nor that an incompetent or otherwise objectionable juror was forced upon defendant. On the contrary, the judge’s-statement in connection with this bill shows that the jury was finally completed and defendant’s peremptory challenges were not exhausted. The jury law intends that the Tegular jurors be made available, if practicable, without resort to talesmen. West v. The State, 7 Texas Ct. App. 150; Lambertson v. The People, 5 Park. Cr. 200. And where a defendant’s peremptory challenges have not been exhausted in the formation of a jury, it has been held time and again that any irregularity or error in that respect will not be noticed or revised, because he had it in his own power to correct it as long as his challenges lasted. Myers v. The State, 7 Texas Ct. App. 641; Grissom v. The State, Galveston term, 1880, ante, p. 386.

Following the order and line of argument pursued in appellant’s brief, the next error (shown by the seventh bill of exceptions) is the admission in evidence, over objections, of certain portions of the testimony of Mrs. Seymour, the mother of deceased, as to two transactions two nights prior to the killing. The first was a difficulty between deceased and other parties, one of whom was defendant; and the second was the conduct and declarations of defendant at a late hour of the same night, in witness’s house, kept by Katie Franklin, at which time defendant said “ he wanted to find some son of a bitch to shoot.”

It is a rule of law which is well settled that “ when the scienter or quo anima is requisite to and constitutes a necessary and essential part of the crime with which the person is charged, and proof of such guilty knowledge or malicious intention is indispensable to establish his guilt in regard to the transaction in question, testimony of such acts, conduct, [639]*639or declarations of the accused as tend to establish such knowledge or intent is competent, notwithstanding they may constitute in law a distinct crime.” Whart. on Horn., sect. 701.

Mr. Greenleaf says : In some cases, however, evidence has been received of facts which happened before or after the principal transaction, which had no direct or apparent connection with it; and therefore their admission might seem at first view to constitute an exception to this rule [which excludes evidence of collateral facts].

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Bluebook (online)
8 Tex. Ct. App. 626, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mckinney-v-state-texapp-1880.