Henry v. State
| Decision Date | 15 December 1897 |
| Parties | HENRY v. STATE. |
| Court | Texas Court of Criminal Appeals |
Appeal from district court, Walker county; J. M. Smither, Judge.
Pat Henry, Jr., was convicted of hog theft, and appeals. Affirmed.
Mann Trice, for the State.
Appellant was convicted of hog theft, and his punishment assessed at two years' confinement in the penitentiary; hence this appeal.
In his first bill of exceptions, appellant complains of the action of the court in permitting the sheriff of Walker county to state that during three years he had in his hands capiases for the arrest of the defendant, and had made diligent inquiry as to his whereabouts in that county, and had failed to find him. Several objections were urged to the admission of this testimony, none of which have any merit. This character of testimony is always admissible to show the flight of defendant.
By the second bill of exceptions, he complains that the court permitted the witness Nettle Tillas to state that defendant, after the commission of the offense charged, left Walker county, where the offense was committed. This was objected to because no predicate was laid for the introduction of this character of testimony, by "showing that this defendant was under bond, and failed to appear, or that he had no right to leave the county of Walker." No predicate was necessary to be laid. The mere fact that he left the county just after the commission of this offense, and knew that he was suspected, was predicate sufficient. It was a statement of the fact, predicated upon the charge of theft and subsequent flight. Nor is it necessary that he should be under bond, in order to introduce evidence of his flight. If this were true, the evidence of flight of a defendant could not be admitted at all, if he had not been arrested, and subsequently fled.
In the third bill of exceptions, he complains of the refusal of the court to give the following requested instructions: "You are instructed that if you believe from the evidence that the witnesses Emma Henry, Emma Patrick, and Nettle Tillas were accomplices in the taking of said hog, as the term `accomplice' has been explained in other parts of this instruction, then you will acquit the defendant; there being no evidence before you corroborating their evidence as to the actual commission of the offense by this defendant." This ruling of the court was correct. The court gave a charge on the question of accomplice testimony, fully and fairly submitting that issue to the jury, and favorable to the defendant. There were circumstances and cogent facts, independent of the testimony of these witnesses, which strongly tended to show that defendant committed the theft,— perhaps sufficiently cogent to have justified a conviction independent of the accomplice testimony....
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...S. W. 690, and in Pilot's Case, 38 Tex. Cr. R. 515, 43 S. W. 112, 1024, and the principle controlling these cases is affirmed in Henry v. State, 43 S. W. 340; Montgomery v. State, 13 Tex. App. 74; Johnson v. State, 27 Tex. On the question of alleged comment upon appellants' failure to testi......
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...of a juror that he was induced to sign the verdict by a promise that the jury would recommend the defendant to executive clemency. Henry v. State, 43 S. W. 340; Montgomery v. State, 13 Tex. App. 74. In the case of Johnson v. State, 27 Tex. 758, the Supreme Court said: `No case has yet occur......
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...St. Rep. 828; Ulmer v. State, 71 Tex. Cr. R. 579, 160 S. W. 1188; Pilot v. State, 38 Tex. Cr. R. 515, 43 S. W. 112, 1024; Henry v. State (Tex. Cr. App.) 43 S. W. 340; Montgomery v. State, 13 Tex. App. 74; McCane v. State, 33 Tex. Cr. R. 476, 26 S. W. 1087; Johnson v. State, 27 Tex. 758. In ......
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