Turner v. State

187 S.W.2d 991, 148 Tex. Crim. 491, 1945 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 782
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Texas
DecidedApril 4, 1945
DocketNo. 23094.
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 187 S.W.2d 991 (Turner 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
Turner v. State, 187 S.W.2d 991, 148 Tex. Crim. 491, 1945 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 782 (Tex. 1945).

Opinions

GRAVES, Judge.

Appellant was convicted of an assault with intent to murder with malice upon Dora Turner, and by the jury assessed a penalty of fourteen years in the penitentiary.

The facts reflect the night life of a city in various places of amusement. Appellant seems at one time to have been the wife of one Homer Medford, and Dora Turner was the third person in this triangle, the testimony evidencing the fact that Dora Turner was infatuated with Medford, even going to the extent of living with him for some time in a tourist camp, so the witnesses said, and having had Medford’s initials tattooed on her arm some three weeks prior to this trial. On the night of the assault complained of, on August 11, 1944, appellant appeared in the Plaza Hotel Cafe in Dallas, a place crowded with people, and some one said “Watch out Dora,” and when the complaining witness turned around she saw appellant with a pistol pointed towards her; the pistol was fired, and Dora Turner fell in a faint, the pistol ball passing through her hair but not striking the body or neck of Dora Turner. Upon being apprehended, as she stood in the cafe soon after the firing of the shot, appellant said: “Is the son-of-a-bitch dead ? If not, I will finish her,” and she pointed the pistol at the arresting officer, who stood still, and appellant left the cafe. The officer, in company with another officer, soon apprehended her and disarmed her. There was no denial of these facts by anyone.

Bill of exceptions No. 1 relates to the refusal of the trial court to quash the indictment herein because it is claimed there was an unwarranted and illegal participation of the judge impaneling the grand jury in the manner of the selection of the twelfth grand juror of the panel that returned the indictment against appellant. The statute relative to a challenge of the formation or personnel of a grand jury, requiring that such challenge shall be made prior to the impaneling of such jury, has of necessity been enlarged upon to the extent of allowing such a challenge in the form of a motion to quash the indictment *494 found by such a grand jury where the offense therein charged is alleged to have taken place after such jury had been impaneled. See Powell v. State, 99 Tex. Cr. R. 276, 269 S. W. 443; Davis v. State, 288 S. W. 456.

The contention herein is that the judge impaneling the grand jury interfered with the free exercise of discretion upon the part of the deputy sheriff in summoning talesmen in order to fill out the panel of twelve grand jurors, it being shown that upon a call of the grand jurors selected by the grand jury commissioners only twelve such jurors appeared, and one of them offered a valid excuse, and was excused from service thereon, whereupon the judge directed a deputy sheriff to summon tales-men for the purpose of filling the quota of twelve for a grand jury. We think it can safely be said that the judge administered a proper oath to such deputy sheriff who then proceeded to phone first one Charlie Steele, and being unable to make contact with said Steele, he then phoned to one P. A. Bailey, who soon appeared in court, was properly summoned and accepted by the court and became the twelfth member of the grand jury thus impaneled.

The contention herein being that the selection of Mr. Bailey as a talesman was riot the act of the deputy sheriff, but that such selection was made by the judge. The district judge thus complained of was Judge Claude McCallum, who had departed this life at the time of this trial, and we do not have the benefit of his testimony as to what took place on the occasion in question, although the deputy sheriff who summoned the juror testified fully relative thereto, and his testimony doubtless had great weight with the trial court in his decision in this matter. The matter at issue in this motion being whether the deputy sheriff acted upon his own initiative, or whether Judge McCallum ordered the summoning of Mr. Bailey as the twelfth grand juror. We find the record with evidence upon both sides of this controversy; but do' find many statements therein that support the conclusion arrived at by the judge trying the case, that the selection of Mr. Bailey as a talesman was the act of the bailiff and not the act of the judge. We quote excerpts from the bailiff, Morgan Riddle’s testimony:

“When he (Judge McCallum) first mentioned it to me, yes, the judge instructed me to go and summon a talesman without regard to who he was or where he lived. * * * Yes, sir, I exercised my discretion in selecting him (Mr. Bailey), that is right. * * * I was trying to obey the orders of the court and go out and select a mari to finish up the panel, and I did so, and Mr. *495 Bailey, whom I then summoned, was a man of my choice. I selected him acting upon my own discretion and judgment, and not at the dictates of the judge or anyone else.”

There is other testimony in the record corroborative of the above statement, and also testimony to the contrary therein; but as we see the matter, it appears to us that there is ample testimony present upon which the trial judge could- say that on this disputed question of fact he found that the selection of Mr. Bailey as a talesman was the act of Deputy Sheriff Riddle, uninfluenced by any act upon the part of Judge McCallum. Had this matter been presented to a jury upon a required finding of fact, and, under the facts presented, it had found the act to have been that of the bailiff, supported as it is by the present testimony, we would not feel justified in setting such finding aside; neither do we now find ourselves justified in setting aside the finding of Judge Henry King, the trial judge, based as it is upon conflicting testimony.

The case of Davis v. State', 288 S.'W. 456, relied upon by appellant, is not in point. The facts therein show that the district judge took the list selected by the grand jury commissioners, before same had been sealed up and delivered to the clerk, and arbitrarily struck off four names thereon who had' been selected as grand jurors, and directed the commissioners to select four other persons to take the place of the four stricken by the judge. This action was prohibited by statute, see Art. 337, C.C.P., as well as an unwarranted intrusion upon the part of the judge, and was clearly error, but we find no such facts presented herein. The motion to quash was properly overruled.

In bill of exceptions No. 2 complaint is made that while the prosecuting witness, Dora Turner, was on the stand, she was being questioned relative to her feelings towards one Homer Medford, the one-time husband of appellant, whose initials “H.C.M.” the witness had caused to be tattooed upon her shoulder, and the witness said that she had a sister in the hospital, and that said Medford was also in this hospital, and she would also go to see him when at the hospital, and the witness volunteered the statement: “I went out to see my sister, I had read in the paper where ‘she’ had shot ‘him’, meaning thereby that ‘she’ referred to appellant, and ‘him’ to Medford. There was no objection to this answer at such time, but upon its repetition later on the records show that appellant’s attorneys requested the court as follows: “We ask that be stricken and that the witness be instructed to. confine her remarks to the questions,” to *496 which request the trial court took no action.

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Bluebook (online)
187 S.W.2d 991, 148 Tex. Crim. 491, 1945 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 782, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/turner-v-state-texcrimapp-1945.