Halloway v. State
| Decision Date | 17 November 1943 |
| Docket Number | No. 22045.,22045. |
| Parties | HALLOWAY v. STATE. |
| Court | Texas Court of Criminal Appeals |
Appeal from County Court at Law, El Paso County; M. V. Ward, Judge.
W. M. Halloway was convicted of driving an automobile upon a public highway while intoxicated, and he appeals.
Judgment reformed, and as reformed, affirmed.
Cunningham, Ward & Cunningham, of El Paso, for appellant.
Spurgeon E. Bell, State's Atty., of Austin, for the State.
Appellant was tried before the Judge of the County Court at Law of El Paso County without a jury, and convicted of driving an automobile upon a public highway while intoxicated, and his punishment assessed at a fine of $50.
We regard it as unnecessary to set out the evidence at length. It is sufficient to support the finding of the court that appellant, while intoxicated, drove his car upon a highway of the State. There was a denial of intoxication by appellant, supported by other evidence, upon which the court could have predicated a judgment of acquittal. This issue of fact having been settled against appellant, it will not be disturbed by this court.
The questions presented for review are those raised by bills of exception only. The main point appears to be that raised by bills one and two. Appellant was involved in a collision with another car about one-thirty o'clock at night. Officers were notified and upon arrival arrested appellant and took him to jail. The officer testified that he asked appellant for a specimen of urine and warned him that he did not have to give it, but if he did give a specimen it would be analyzed for alcoholic content and used against him, and that appellant agreed to and did give such specimen. The officer referred to appellant signing what the witness sometimes called a "waiver" and sometimes an "agreement." Whatever instrument appellant signed was not offered in evidence. This specimen of urine was sent to the Laboratory of the Texas State Department of Health at Austin, was analyzed, and the report of the result was used on the trial. The witness who made the analysis was not produced, but appellant admitted in open court, and it is so shown in the bills of exception, that the urinalysis was correct as shown in the report. The State then offered in evidence the report from said laboratory which showed the alcoholic content in the urine to be 24%. No objection was interposed on the ground that the State had not shown a compliance with the statute which excludes confessions made by an accused while under arrest or in jail unless under certain conditions. Art. 727, Code Cr.Proc. The only objection interposed was that the report "purports to be the report of some formula that is not a proven formula, and in no wise shows how this formula come to be adopted, or the accuracy of it, or the reliability of it, and for the further reason that if the man was intoxicated, it is apparent that he didn't know what he was doing when he signed that consent to take that urine test, and therefore, we feel it's not voluntarily made." The report does not on its face purport to be based on any formula. It only states the result of the analysis of the urine, which analysis appellant admits to be correct. We gather from a discussion of the question in appellant's brief that what he really had in mind was that, admitting that the test showed .24% alcohol in his urine, it fell short of proving conclusively that he was intoxicated. The objection went to the weight of the evidence and not its admissibility. The effect of .24% alcohol in the urine depended on other evidence in the record. We are not holding that the presence of the named per cent of alcohol in the urine is conclusive proof of intoxication. If there was no other evidence than this as to the intoxicated condition of appellant, we are inclined to the view that a serious question as to the sufficiency of the evidence might be presented; however, it is not necessary to pass upon that question as such other evidence is found in the record The case of Apodaca v. State, 140 Tex.Cr.R. 593, 146 S.W.2d 381, upon which appellant relies seems not in point. No consent to any of the things done by accused in that case was shown.
As to appellant's objection that if he was intoxicated when he agreed to give the specimen of urine it was not a voluntary act on his part, we observe that appellant never claimed in his own testimony that he was so drunk he did not know that he consented to give such specimen, or that same...
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Nichols v. State
...his faculties due to the intoxication. Vasquez, supra at 109; Dickey v. State, 284 S.W.2d 901 (Tex.Cr.App.1955); Halloway v. State, 162 Tex.Cr.R. 322, 175 S.W.2d 258, 259 (1943). If appellant's intoxication rendered him incapable to make an independent, informed choice of free will, then hi......
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Olson v. State
...1407 (1952); same subject on federal rights, 16 L.Ed.2d 908 (1967), supplemented in 22 L.Ed.2d 909 (1970). 43 Halloway v. State, 146 Tex.Cr.R. 353, 175 S.W.2d 258 (Tex.Cr.App.1943). 44 McKay v. State, 155 Tex.Cr.R. 416, 235 S.W.2d 173 (Tex.Cr.App.1950); Jones v. State, 159 Tex.Cr.R. 29, 261......
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Gilder v. State
...It is to be weighed by the trier of fact and assigned the degree of credibility that the trier of fact desires. Halloway v. State, 146 Tex.Cr.R. 353, 175 S.W.2d 258 (1943); Miller v. State, 170 Tex.Cr.R. 406, 341 S.W.2d 440 'In absence of such a statute the prosecutor must insure that his e......
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Ritchie v. State, 28598
...know and understand what he was doing when he made and signed the same. Lienpo v. State, 28 Tex.App. 179, 12 S.W. 588; Halloway v. State, 146 Tex.Cr.R. 353, 175 S.W.2d 258; and Vasquez v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 288 S.W.2d 100. There being no uncontroverted testimony which rendered the confessi......