Chapin v. State
| Decision Date | 12 November 1958 |
| Docket Number | No. 29975,29975 |
| Parties | R. A. CHAPIN, Appellant, v. STATE of Texas, Appellee. |
| Court | Texas Court of Criminal Appeals |
Morriss, Morriss, Boatwright & Lewis, Will A. Morriss, Jr., San Antonio, and Burkett & Petsch, Kerrville, for appellant.
Leon B. Douglas, State's Atty., Austin, for the State.
[167 TEXCRIM 391] The offense is murder; the punishment, five years.
We shall attempt to summarize this voluminous record in the light of the contentions raised on appeal.
The appellant and deceased, both mature men and rivals over the hand of a young woman who was separated from her husband and living in the community, lived in the town of Camp Wood. Deceased had formerly been Ina Sue's swain but, because of his jealousy, she had shifted her affections to the appellant, whose attentions she encouraged up until the time of the trial. The deceased was not a good loser and when drinking made threats and overt threatening gestures toward the appellant. Five people, in two automobiles, met on the streets of Camp Wood after a dance one Saturday night shortly after 2:00 a. m., where a fight ensued. The appellant and Ina Sue were together, while the deceased was accompanied by Joe Hibbits and one Melvin Williams. What occurred at the scene must be gleaned from the testimony of Hibbits and Williams on one side, and the appellant and Ina Sue on the other. All the parties had been drinking.
Before discussing this in detail, it is well to observe at the outset that appellant's principal complaint grows out of the court's failure to charge on circumstantial evidence. He predicates such complaint upon the following facts. The deceased met his death as the result of two stab wounds in the chest. Hibbits and Williams saw the appellant enter the automobile of the deceased with an open knife in his hand. Williams heard him say he 'ought to kill' the deceased 'or cut his throat.' These witnesses thereafter saw them fighting with their fists inside the vehicle, but did not see the appellant stab the deceased. Hibbits and Williams were rendered non-combatants by Ina Sue, who stated to them that she was armed with a pistol with all chambers full and expressed the desire to let the appellant and the deceased fight it out among themselves. After the fight, appellant and Ina Sue drove off, and Hibbits and Williams went home on foot, leaving the deceased seated in the front seat of his automobile, not knowing that he had been injured. Deceased spoke to them in a low mumbling voice similar to his usual voice when intoxicated and said that it was all right for them to go on home. Deceased's body was not discovered until some five hours later, and he was then lying down in the front seat of his automobile which had not been moved.
The appellant admitted being angered by the deceased's [167 TEXCRIM 392] statement that he was 'a yellow s. o. b. who was afraid to fight,' that after the deceased hit him he opened his knife, and that the two of them fell into deceased's automobile fighting, but denies that he stabbed the deceased in the chest and admits only that he might have cut the deceased on the wrist during their fight. He stated that 'when I stepped back (from deceased's automobile) I told him to get out and we'd just fist fight it out.' Appellant states that he had opened his knife to protect himself when he saw the deceased reach in his automobile to a place where he customarily carried a .22 caliber rifle, but says that he did not purposely use the same to inflict any injury to deceased.
Under this testimony, the appellant urges that the charge on circumstantial evidence should have been given and points to the following:
1. That, some time after the death of deceased, some blood and a knife cut were found on the back seat, and blood was found on the outside of the right door of deceased's automobile; however, all the witnesses testified that the deceased and appellant had fought only on the front seat.
2. That the doctor who performed the autopsy on the body of deceased expressed the opinion that a person who had suffered the two stab wounds which he observed in the front of the deceased's chest would normally have lived only from five to fifteen minutes after the wounds were inflicted. He did not, however, express any opinion as to how long the body had been dead when he saw it.
3. That the appellant sustained a bloody nose in his fight with the deceased which might have explained the presence of blood on his knife and clothes found in his home the morning after the fight.
The appellant differentiates the case at bar from those in which we have held that no charge on circumstantial evidence was required by relying strongly upon the fact that deceased's body was not found until some five or six hours after the fight. We agree that such distinction does exist, but are nevertheless confronted with the rule that where the facts are in such juxtaposition one to another that the only logical conclusion to be drawn therefrom is that the accused inflicted the fatal injury, then a charge on circumstantial evidence is not required.
[167 TEXCRIM 393] Recently, in Landry v. State, 156 Tex.Cr.R. 350, 242 S.W.2d 381, 384, we said:
On rehearing in the same case, we said:
'* * * we have concluded that this is a case where the facts are in such juxtaposition one to another that only one logical conclusion may be drawn therefrom.'
In the case at bar, we conclude that the foregoing testimony, together with the following facts, bring this case within the rule in Landry.
1. The long enmity that had existed between the appellant and the deceased prior to the night of the homicide.
2. The fact that according to the State's case the appellant entered the deceased's automobile with an open knife in his hand after stating that he ought to kill the deceased and that his knife and clothes were bloody the next morning.
3. The fact that the deceased died from wounds inflicted by a sharp instrument within a relatively short period of time following the assault by appellant.
4. The fact that no one, other than his companions Hibbits and Williams, was shown to have been near the deceased following the assault by the appellant.
Appellant next contends that the court erred in his charge to the jury wherein he submitted murder without malice. His contention that the phrase 'or if you have a reasonable doubt thereof' referred back to the phrase 'voluntarily and without justification or excuse' cannot be sustained. A reading of the entire paragraph leaves no doubt but that the court was referring to a killing under sudden passion and was proper.
Appellant cites no authorities in support of his contention that the court's charge on self defense was defective, and we are aware of none which will support him.
Appellant's complaint as to the failure of the court to instruct the jury that they must find beyond a reasonable doubt that the appellant and no other person inflicted the fatal wound has, we think, been answered in that portion of this opinion in which we discussed the necessity of charging on circumstantial evidence. Normally, if one were not required under the facts, then the other would not be called for.
We next come to appellant's contention that the court erred in failing to instruct the jury not to consider the answer of the witness Merritt who discovered the body of the deceased the next morning. He was asked, 'And...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Hankins v. State
...is mandatory if the main fact to be proved is established only by inferences from other facts, as announced in Chapin v. State, 167 Tex.Cr.R. 390, 320 S.W.2d 341 (1959). 7 The Court held in Chapin that when the facts established, though they be circumstances, stand in such relationship one ......
-
Thomas v. State
...of a circumstantial-evidence charge, to be given in a wholly circumstantial evidence case, that was recognized in Chapin v. State, 167 Tex. Crim. 390, 320 S.W.2d 341 (1958). The court in Chapin held that, when the facts, though they be circumstances, stand in such relationship one to anothe......
-
Richardson v. State
...is mandatory if the main fact to be proved is established only by inferences from other facts, as announced in Chapin v. State, 167 Tex.Cr.R. 390, 320 S.W.2d 341 (1959). In Chapin, supra, the evidence illustrated a long standing enmity between the accused and the deceased which ended one la......
-
Ex parte Carter
...court to give a circumstantial-evidence instruction, and the Thomas court adopted a narrow exception, recognized in Chapin v. State, 167 Tex.Crim. 390, 320 S.W.2d 341 (1958), to the requirement that a trial court give such an "[W]hen the facts, though they be circumstances, stand in such re......