Maddox v. State

• Decision Date: 06 April 1938
• Docket Number: No. 19625.,19625.
• Parties: MADDOX v. STATE.
• Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

115 S.W.2d 644

MADDOX v. STATE.

No. 19625.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.

April 6, 1938.

Commissioners' Decision.

Appeal from Criminal District Court, Harris County; Whit Boyd, Judge.

Carl Maddox was convicted of murder, and he appeals.

Reversed and remanded.

C. F. Stevens and Dick Young, both of Houston, for appellant.

Lloyd W. Davidson, State's Atty., of Austin, for the State.

CHRISTIAN, Judge.

The offense is murder; the punishment, confinement in the penitentiary for ten years.

It was charged in the indictment in substance that appellant, with malice aforethought, killed James W. Turner by cutting and stabbing him with a knife.

Appellant worked at George's Hamburger Stand in the city of Houston. He had known Norma Tappen for some time and apparently was in love with her. About 3 a. m., August 30, 1936, deceased and Miss Tappen, accompanied by other couples, drove to the hamburger stand and ordered soda water. Upon seeing the deceased with Miss Tappen appellant went to the kitchen and procured a knife. Returning to the car in which the couples were seated, he made a remark to the deceased, which the witnesses were unable to understand. At this juncture, deceased left the car and engaged in a fist fight with appellant. During the progress of the fight appellant stabbed deceased in the abdomen. Companions of deceased immediately carried him to a hospital where he died a few hours later. The State introduced in evidence appellant's confession which, omitting the formal parts, reads as follows:

"About 2 a. m., Sunday morning, August 30, 1936, I cut and stabbed Jimmie Turner, a boy, with the knife shown me in the Homicide office by Captain Peyton. At the time of this stabbing I was working extra at George's Hamburger Stand Number 7 at North Main and Quitman Street. Jimmie Turner and two other boys and three girls, Norma Tappen, Louise Kemp and Beulah Mae Sutton came to the hamburger stand in a car. One of the girls working at the hamburger stand went out and took their order for hamburgers. I had known Jimmie Turner only a few days but I didn't like him being with Norma Tappen. I took some beer bottles out to the back and saw them (Jimmie Turner and Norma Tappen) in the car together; they were sitting in the car at the time eating hamburgers. Norma Tappen spoke to me and I spoke back, and after we spoke Jimmie Turner started to making a noise with his mouth and that made me mad. I went in the kitchen. Jimmie Turner and I could see each other through the window. I asked Jimmie Turner if he was making that noise at me and he said `Yes.' That made me mad. I put my knife in my belt and went out towards the car. Jimmie Turner got out of the car as I approached and I hit him with my fists. I hit the first lick and we clinched and I cut him with the knife. Jimmie Turner did not have any kind of a weapon that I knew of when I cut him. When I put the knife in my belt and started out of the kitchen towards the car I intended to stab the boy with the knife. This all happened here in Harris County, Texas. I bought this knife about a month before this cutting at the Western Auto Store."

Testifying in his own behalf, appellant repudiated his confession and declared that he acted in self-defense at the time he inflicted the fatal wound. It was his version that deceased was preparing to attack him with a knife and that he cut the deceased, with no intent to kill him but only in an effort to stop him.

It is shown in two bills of exception that the State proved, over appellant's objection, that two or three hours before the homicide appellant...