Blakeley v. State

• Decision Date: 11 January 1888
• Parties: BLAKELEY v. STATE.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

7 S.W. 233

BLAKELEY v. STATE.

Court of Appeals of Texas.

January 11, 1888.

Appeal from district court, Falls county; EUGENE WILLIAMS, Judge.

Indictment of an accessory to murder. See May v. State, 4 S. W. Rep. 591, for an account of the case of the principal. The evidence, which was substantially the same in this case as in that of the principal, showed a killing of one Daffin by May in the presence of this defendant and two other witnesses; that after the murder this defendant and May had a private conversation, after which May mounted a horse and disappeared; that this defendant induced, through fear, the other witnesses to testify, upon the inquest over Daffin's body, that, when May shot Daffin, May was fleeing from Daffin, who was pursuing him, and striking at him with a knife. Defendant was sentenced to an imprisonment of five years in the penitentiary, and appeals.

Alexander, Winter & Dickinson. for appellant. Asst. Atty. Gen. Davidson, for the State

WHITE, P. J.

This is a companion case to May v. State, 23 Tex. App. 146, 4 S. W. Rep. 591. In the first count the indictment charges May with the murder of Derush Daffin; and in the second count the charge as set forth against the appellant is that "after the commission of the aforesaid offense of murder by the said Erasmus May, as aforesaid, and well knowing the said Erasmus May to have committed said offense, Steve Blakeley, the defendant, did then and there unlawfully, willfully, and feloniously conceal and give aid to said Erasmus May, in order that he (the said Erasmus May) might evade an arrest and trial for said offense; and so the grand jurors aforesaid, upon their oaths aforesaid, do say that he (the said Steve Blakeley) did then and there become and make himself an accessory to the murder and killing of the said Derush Daffin by the said Erasmus May, in the manner and form as aforesaid, contrary," etc. The indictment sufficiently charged the offense, (Will. Crim. Forms, No. 539,) under article 86, Pen. Code, which defines the crime in the following language: "An accessory is one who, knowing that an offense has been committed, conceals the offender, or gives him any other aid, in order that he may evade an arrest or trial, or the execution of his sentence. But no person who aids an offender in making or preparing his defense at law, or procures him to be bailed, though he afterwards escape, shall be considered an accessory." At the appellant's trial in the court below, the matters proved in behalf of the prosecution, to establish the crime alleged, were objected to by the defendant, both as irrelevant and insufficient to the issue. It is insisted that the facts permitted to be proved did not go to show either that defendant concealed May, or that he gave him such aid as to enable him to evade an arrest or trial. In brief, the facts proved were that, immediately after the homicide, this defendant and May went off by themselves, and had a private conversation, after which May mounted a horse and rode off. Defendant then told the only other two parties who were present that they must swear before the coroner's jury to a certain state of facts which he then and there detailed, and that, if they did so, it would appear to said jury, and they would so find, that May was justifiable, in self-defense, in killing Daffin, and he would either be exonerated entirely, or put upon a very light bond to answer the charge. Acting upon these suggestions, and through fear of May and defendant, the two witnesses did, at the coroner's inquest, swear, as did also Blakeley, to the fabricated statement of the occurrence as devised by Blakeley; and the result, as anticipated by Blakeley, was that May was subsequently placed under a nominal bond, and that the grand jury, for several terms of the district court thereafter, failed to indict him for the murder, and he was only indicted after it leaked out and was ascertained that the testimony given by the witnesses at the inquest was false and perjured. On May's trial, under indictment for the murder, the two witnesses who had sworn on the inquest to the fabricated statement of Blakeley testified that they had sworn falsely, and developed the reasons and inducements causing them to do so. They also stated, as they declared, truthfully, the facts attendant upon the homicide as they actually did occur; and upon this their testimony, corroborated as it was by other evidence, May was convicted of murder of the second degree, and his punishment affixed by the verdict and judgment of the court was a term of 75 years in the penitentiary, which judgment, on appeal, was afterwards affirmed by this court. May v. State, supra. It is perhaps necessary we should further state that after the conversation between May and defendant, immediately following upon the killing, and after he had mounted a horse and ridden off as above stated, May did not appear at the coroner's inquest, nor was he seen for a day or two thereafter, until his appearance before the justice of the peace to enter into the nominal bond for his appearance above mentioned.

On this appellant's trial as accessory, the two witnesses also testified, as in May's Case, to the facts with regard to the fabricated testimony at the inquest, and to the facts as they actually occurred. The objections...