Cline v. State

• Decision Date: 01 January 1875
• Citation: 43 Tex. 494
• Parties: J. W. CLINE v. THE STATE.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

43 Tex. 494

J. W. CLINE

v.THE STATE.

Supreme Court of Texas.

1875.

APPEAL from Grayson. Tried below before the Hon. Silas Hare, judge of the criminal court of Sherman.

Appellant, J. W. Cline, and one Wm. Hughes were indicted for theft of money from Samuel Dukes. The money is described in the opinion. Cline was tried, found guilty, and his punishment fixed at confinement in the penitentiary for two years and six months. His motion for new trial was overruled, and he appealed.

On the trial Samuel Dukes testified as follows:

“On the 27th October, 1874, at Dennison, Grayson county, Texas, I lost twenty dollars. J. W. Cline, one of the defendants, on that day came to me and told me he had a mule for sale. I told him I did not wish to buy, but I have a yoke of oxen I would trade for a mule. Cline replied, ‘Come, and I will show it to you.’ I went with him to an open place in the rear of a store, and went through the store to look at the mule. He said he (the mule) had been taken to water. Defendant Cline said, ‘We will sit down here, and the mule will be back in a few moments.’ He then drew out five business cards and said he believed he would raffle off his mule. On the back of one of the cards was a dot on one corner. The other cards were unmarked, and on their backs resembled each other.

Defendant Cline showed me how I could draw the card with a 100 on its face by the private mark on its back. About this time defendant Hughes came up at my back. Hughes took the cards, looked at them, and said he would bet the drinks that no one could draw the card with the 100 on its face the first draw. Cline said, ‘I will take the bet that this old man can draw it.’ They bet the drinks; I drew and got the 100 card. Cline won and Hughes lost. Hughes then seemed to get very mad and said, ‘I will bet from five to twenty dollars that he (witness) could not draw the card again.’ Cline said, ‘I have not got the money;’ turning to me after feeling towards his pocket, ‘if you have twenty dollars lend it to me.’ I took out the money and counted it on my knee. The two defendants bet, and as I was drawing the card Hughes put down something that appeared like a twenty-dollar gold piece on the twenty dollars on my knee, and as the hand he had it in came down on my knee grabbed all the money and ran off with it. I drew the losing card, but did not take hold of it until Hughes had grabbed the money. The money taken consisted of three five dollar bills, two ones, one two, one fifty cent piece and two quarters. Cline said, ‘You fool, why did you not draw the right card.’ I then grabbed Cline and said, ‘You are partners and swindlers;’ that he had ‘cheated me out of my money and should not go until I got my money back.’ Cline then went into three or four different places with me, as if hunting Hughes; said he would find him and get the money back, if Hughes had not spent it. At last he led me into a large house where a woman and some men were playing cards. Cline walked to the middle of the floor, and while I was not watching very close, he jerked loose from me and darted through a side room door. I tried the door and found it fast. I then went and found a policeman, and when we got back to the house where I had last seen defendant we got them to open the side room door, but Cline was gone. We found out from the woman that the man I had brought there was named Cline, and I gave the policeman his description. We left the house and hunted some time for Cline. At last the policeman told me to go one way through an alley and he would go another and we would catch him. In going through the alley I looked into an outhouse that had the window glass broken out, and by poking my head through the sash was able to see Cline sitting in one corner, ‘hunkered down.’ I called out to the policeman, ‘Here he is,’ when Cline said, ‘No, I am not the man.’ But I told him he was, and had him taken into custody. Cline was arrested on ‘Skiddy street.’ We arrested Hughes on Woodward street. When Hughes was arrested he had six dollars in his possession. I recognized one two-dollar bill and one one-dollar bill as mine. These two were returned to me. The two-dollar bill I had before the grand jury, and also showed it to Mr. Denton, a lawyer, who took a written description of it.”

The officer making the arrest testified to finding six dollars on the defendant, Hughes, two of the bills, one two and one one-dollar bill being identified and claimed by Dukes.

The district attorney also testified that he had the two-dollar bill shown him by Dukes before him when he drew the indictment, and described it accurately at the time.

G. G. Randell, for appellant.

A. J. Peeler, Assistant Attorney General, for the State.

MOORE, ASSOCIATE JUSTICE.

The appellant, J. W. Cline, and Wm. Hughes are charged with the theft of “three currency notes of the United States of the denomination and value of five dollars each, two one-dollar currency notes of the United States of the value of one dollar each, one two-dollar currency note of the United States of the value of two dollars, one United States currency note of the denomination and value of fifty cents, and two United States fractional currency notes each of the value of twenty-five cents, of the aggregate value...