Huey v. State

• Decision Date: 24 November 1920
• Docket Number: (No. 5957.)
• Parties: HUEY v. STATE.
• Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

227 S.W. 186

HUEY v. STATE.

(No. 5957.)

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.

November 24, 1920.

Rehearing Denied January 26, 1921.

Appeal from District Court, Cooke County; C. R. Pearman, Judge.

I. A. Huey was convicted of murder, and he appeals. Affirmed.

Culp, Culp & Culp, of Gainesville, for appellant.

Garnett & Garnett, of Gainesville, and Alvin M. Owsley, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

MORROW, J.

The conviction is for murder, and punishment fixed at confinement in the penitentiary for seven years.

Under the same indictment, on a former trial, appellant was adjudged guilty of manslaughter. By appeal he sought and obtained relief from this judgment upon the ground that the verdict of conviction was rendered by a jury not sworn as required by law, and therefore void. Hewey v. State, 220 S. W. 1108. In the instant case he interposed a plea of former acquittal of murder, seeking to avail himself of the statutory rule under which, where one is tried under an indictment which includes several degrees, a conviction of the lesser operates as an acquittal of the higher degree. C. C. P. art. 782. In this statute an exception is made of those cases in which the new trial is gained, or the judgment arrested, because of want of jurisdiction in the court trying the case. Other statutory provisions emphasize this exception. In article 20, C. C. P., it is said:

"If the defendant shall have been acquitted upon trial in a court having no jurisdiction of the offense, he may be again prosecuted."

Again, in subdivision 2 of article 572, it is said in substance that to bar a subsequent trial the acquittal must have been by a jury in a court of competent jurisdiction, whether the acquittal was regular or irregular. In our Constitution it is provided that the right of trial by jury shall remain inviolate. The Legislature shall pass such laws as may be needed to regulate the same and to maintain its purity and efficacy. Article 1, § 15, Constitution. The Legislature has provided that no person can be convicted of a felony except upon the verdict of a jury duly rendered and recorded. C. C. P. art. 21. The Legislature has also declared that a jury must be impaneled and sworn, and the courts have held that, unless the verdict is rendered by a jury impaneled and sworn, it is not in law a verdict. Howard v. State, 80 Tex. Cr. R. 588, 192 S. W. 770, L. R. A. 1917D, 391; Crisp v. State, 220 S. W. 1104; Henry v. State, 220 S. W. 1109. Jeopardy does not attach in a felony case until the jury has been duly impaneled and sworn. Howard v. State, supra; Hipple v. State, 80 Tex. Cr. R. 541, 191 S. W. 1150, L. R. A., 1917D, 1141; Ruling Case Law, vol. 5, p. 121; Bishop's New Crim. Law, §§ 1014 and 1015. The district courts of this state are given jurisdiction in felony cases (article 5, § 8, Constitution); and another statute provides that the accused in a felony case cannot waive a jury. These constitutional and statutory provisions render it certain that in our state it is essential in a felony case that the judgment be based upon the verdict of a jury. The court organized has no power to determine the guilt or innocence of one accused of a felony, except through the instrumentality of a jury duly impaneled and sworn. The United States Supreme Court, in the case of Kepner v. U. S., 195 U....