Johnson v. State

• Decision Date: 26 January 1898
• Citation: 43 S.W. 1007
• Parties: JOHNSON v. STATE.
• Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

43 S.W. 1007

JOHNSON v. STATE.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.

January 26, 1898.

Appeal from Navarro county court; J. F. Stout, Judge.

J. H. Johnson was convicted of theft, and appeals. Affirmed.

Gore & Gore, for appellant. Mann Trice, for the State.

DAVIDSON, J.

Appellant was charged with the theft of one head of cattle, was convicted, and his punishment assessed at two years' confinement in the penitentiary; hence this appeal.

There are two bills of exception in the record. The first was reserved to the failure of the court to charge upon an issue which defendant contends was raised by the testimony, to wit: "That the offense was not theft, but driving cattle from their accustomed range." This supposed omission of the charge cannot be considered, because what purports to be a statement of the facts incorporated in the record is not approved by the trial judge. There is nothing, therefore, before us to indicate that the testimony suggested such an issue. The second bill of exceptions was reserved to the action of the court refusing to permit the defendant to introduce three indictments against Ollie Woodward or Oliver Woodward, then pending in the district court of Navarro county, for the purpose of "raising a probability that Oliver Woodward, and not defendant, was the actual guilty party; and to corroborate the testimony of the defendant that he was the innocent agent of said Woodward, under whose direction and supposed authority he [defendant] acted." As the bill is presented to us, we see no error. The simple fact that three indictments were pending against Oliver Woodward in the district court of Navarro county does not tend in any way to show the innocence of the defendant in stealing the one head of cattle. How the evidence that three indictments were preferred by the grand jury against Woodward would tend to prove the innocence of the defendant is not attempted to be set out in the bill of exceptions; nor can we well apprehend how said indictments could have had such effect. The testimony not being before us, as before stated, we are unable to revise the charges of the court. The charge as given is applicable to a state of facts provable under the allegations of the indictment. The judgment is affirmed.