Finley v. State
Decision Date | 07 June 1922 |
Docket Number | (No. 7034.) |
Citation | 244 S.W. 526 |
Parties | FINLEY v. STATE. |
Court | Texas Court of Criminal Appeals |
Appeal from District Court, El Paso County; W. D. Howe, Judge.
Joel Finley was convicted of manslaughter, and he appeals. Affirmed.
L. A. Dale, of El Paso, for appellant.
C. L. Vowell, Dist. Atty., and Victor C. Moore, both of El Paso, and R. G. Storey Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
Appellant was convicted in the district court of El Paso county of manslaughter, and his punishment fixed at 3½ years in the penitentiary.
There are but two contentions presented here in the brief of the appellant; same being presented by the only two bills of exception in the record.
By the first bill of exceptions appellant presents his objection to the introduction in evidence of a part of the dying declaration of the deceased. Said declaration was in writing, and signed by the deceased, and is as follows:
That part of said dying declaration at which the objection was directed was the sentence "he shot me in cold blood." The objection was that said statement was but the opinion of the deceased as to the condition of the mind of the defendant at the time of the shooting.
There have been so many pronouncements by this court upon the general subject of dying declarations that we do not deem it necessary to go into an extended discussion of the reasons advanced for admitting same, nor do we desire to attempt to lay down any limits within which such declaration must be confined, and beyond which it must not go. While we have not found in our authorities in this state a decision passing upon the acceptance or rejection of a statement in the exact words of the one here involved, there are many which pass upon cases whose facts, and the principles announced, are analogous. In the following cases the deceased stated in his dying declaration, in substance, that the accused shot him for nothing, and in all the cases this was held admissible. Roberts v. State, 5 Tex. App. 150; Carter v. State, 8 Tex. App. 372; Lockhart v. State, 53 Tex. Cr. R. 593, 111 S. W. 1024; Craft v. State, 57 Tex. Cr. R. 261, 122 S. W. 547; Corbitt v. State, 72 Tex. Cr. R. 396, 163 S. W. 436; Woods v. State, 87 Tex. Cr. R. 354, 221 S. W. 276. In Sims v. State, 36 Tex. Cr. R. 156, 36 S. W. 256, a dying declaration to the effect that "Sims ought not to have shot me" was held admissible, and in Connell v. State, 46 Tex. Cr. R. 261, 81 S. W. 746, a similar statement to the effect that "he had no cause for doing it" was held admissible. In McBride v. People, 5 Colo. App. 91, 37 Pac. 953, the Supreme Court of Colorado affirmed the introduction in evidence as part of a dying declaration of a statement similar to that here complained of, asserting in the opinion that —
Such statement was
We think the declaration fairly well within the often used phrase that an opinion which is a shorthand rendering of the facts is admissible. We can see no ground of objection to this statement that could not have been urged in any of the cases above cited. To assert that one shot another for nothing is to state that the shooting was without cause, and was wanton and without justification. Appellant cites only the cases of Bateson v. State, 46 Tex. Cr. R. 34, 80 S. W. 88, and Williams...
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Connor v. State
...N.W. 539; State v. Klute, 1913, 160 Iowa 170, 140 N.W. 864; Pippin v. Commonwealth, 1915, 117 Va. 919, 86 S.E. 152; Finley v. State, 1922, 92 Tex.Cr.R. 543, 244 S.W. 526.3 Ordinarily it would appear that in a murder case a simple instruction to the effect that manslaughter is the unlawful k......
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...in Davis v. State, 83 Tex. Cr. R. 539, 204 S. W. 655. See, also, Woods v. State, 87 Tex. Cr. R. 354, 221 S. W. 278; Finley v. State, 92 Tex. Cr. R. 543, 244 S. W. 526; Couch v. State, 93 Tex. Cr. R. 27, 245 S. W. 695, 25 A. L. R. 1359. In Sims v. State, 36 Tex. Cr. R. 165, 36 S. W. 256, we ......
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Autry v. State
...the courts as a shorthand rendition of the facts. We find an exact counterpart to the present statement in the case of Finley v. State, 92 Tex.Cr.R. 543, 244 S.W. 526, 527, in which the dying declaration contained the following statement: "I do not know the man's name who shot me. He shot m......
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Tucker v. State
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