Ball v. State

• Decision Date: 18 October 1890
• Parties: BALL v. STATE.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

14 S.W. 1012

BALL v. STATE.

Court of Appeals of Texas.

October 18, 1890.

Appeal from district court, Cooke county; D. E. BARRETT, Judge.

Indictment of Ball for murder. Defendant admitted the killing, and alleged that he did it in self-defense. He was convicted, and appeals. Pen. Code Tex. art. 573, provides that "the party whose person or property is so unlawfully attacked is not bound to retreat in order to avoid the necessity of killing his assailant."

Garnett & Eldridge, Stuart & McCans, and Potter, Potter & Eddleman, for appellant.

WILLSON, J.

But one important issue is involved in this case, and that is the issue of self-defense. It is claimed by defendant that he killed Means under a reasonable apprehension that Means was at the time in the act of killing him, or of inflicting upon him serious bodily injury. In support of this defense, it was proved that Means entertained enmity towards the defendant, and had repeatedly threatened to do him violence, — had even threatened to kill him, — and that these threats had been uttered from time to time for several months prior to the homicide, and reiterated just before the homicide, and that defendant had knowledge of them at the time of the homicide. It was proved that the deceased commenced the difficulty which resulted in his death by a violent attack made upon defendant. In addition to the threats and the attack made upon him, the defendant proposed to read in evidence a postal-card, two letters, and a telegram written by the deceased a short time before the homicide. These writings were not addressed or sent to the defendant, but to his sister and brother-in-law; but defendant had knowledge of their contents before the homicide. They were offered in evidence for the purpose of showing the cause of the enmity of the deceased towards defendant, and the intensity of that enmity, and as tending to show the reasonableness of defendant's apprehension of danger of death or serious bodily harm from the attack made upon him by deceased. Upon objection made thereto by the state, this proposed testimony was rejected, and the defendant reserved a bill of exceptions to the ruling of the court. We are of opinion that the testimony was admissible for the purpose for which it was sought to be used. It showed a bitter, unrelenting animosity on the part of deceased towards defendant's sister and her husband, and also towards the defendant, engendered because of the engagement and marriage of defendant's sister, which engagement and marriage defendant approved, but which deceased bitterly opposed. It was important to the defendant that the jury should be fully informed as to the true cause of the enmity entertained by deceased against him, and of the character of that enmity. Such information would enable the jury, in determining the issue of self-defense, to view the acts of the deceased from the defendant's standpoint Without this information, the jury could not view the circumstances of the homicide in the same light they were viewed by the defendant. Without it they could not know, as the defendant did, the settled, determined, and deadly character of deceased's hatred towards him, and the true cause of that hatred. This testimony throws light not only upon the motive actuating deceased in attacking defendant, but upon the conduct of defendant upon that occasion, and the motive which actuated him to kill deceased. It tends to show that he had reasonable ground to apprehend that the attack made upon him was intended by deceased to be a deadly one. It gives character to the threats, motive, and conduct of the deceased towards the defendant, and also to the motive and conduct...