Bosquez v. State, 29590
Decision Date | 19 March 1958 |
Docket Number | No. 29590,29590 |
Citation | 311 S.W.2d 855,166 Tex.Crim. 147 |
Parties | Jesus Pena BOSQUEZ, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee. |
Court | Texas Court of Criminal Appeals |
Tafolla & Tafolla by James Tafolla, Jr., San Antonia, for appellant.
E. James Kazen, Dist. Atty., Laredo, and Leon B. Douglas, State's Atty., Austin, for the State.
The offense is murder without malice, under Art. 802c Vernon's Ann.P.C.; the punishment, two years.
Juanita Vargas was killed as the result of a head on collision between two Chevrolet automobiles; a 1948 model in which she was riding with her husband and four children, and a 1953 model traveling in the opposite direction on the highway, occupied by two men.
The sufficiency of the evidence to establish the corpus delicti is challenged.
Appellant's confession was introduced which, omitting the warning, reads:
The dead body of Hermelegildo Gutierrez was found in the borrow ditch on the east side of the highway at the scene of the collision. The investigating officer testified without objection that Gutierrez was riding in the car with Pena, the defendant.
There was ample proof of appellant's intoxication, including proof of alcoholic concentration of .21 per cent alcohol by weight in his blood that was tested.
And it was established that Juanita Vargas died as a result of the collision after she had been taken to the hospital. Appellant was also taken to the same hospital.
Appellant took the witness stand in his own behalf, having filed an application for suspended sentence, and testified in part on direct examination:
As a witiness in his own behalf appellant did not deny that he was driving the car in which Gutierrez was riding at the time of the collision, which resulted in the death of Gutierrez and Mrs. Vargas. He did not deny his intoxication or in any way question the State's proof on either the issue of intoxication or his being the driver of the car involved in the fatal accident.
The rule here applicable is thus stated in Kugadt v. State, 38 Tex.Cr.R. 681, 44 S.W. 989, 996, and quoted in Whitaker v. State, 160 Tex.Cr.R. 271, 268 S.W.2d 172, 178; citing also Watson v. State, 154 Tex.Cr.R. 438, 227 S.W.2d 559:
'The Kugadt case has been looked upon as the leading authority relative to the doctrine that in establishment of the corpus delicti, the confessions are not to be excluded, but are to be taken in connection with the other facts and circumstances in evidence.'
The judgment is affirmed.
After submission, this case was referred by the court to Commissioner Dice for the drafting of an opinion therein.
Commissioner Dice concluded that the facts were insufficient to support the conviction and drafted the following opinion reflecting that view and recommending its adoption by the court.
The majority of the court rejected and refused to agree with that opinion.
I was then and am now of the opinion that Commissioner Dice correctly decided the case, and I have adopted his opinion as my dissenting opinion.
The opinion reads as follows:
'Appellant was convicted, under Art. 802c, Vernon's P.C., of killing Juanita Guerrero Vargas by accident or...
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