Matthews v. State

• Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
• Writing for the Court: Henderson
• Citation: Matthews v. State, 48 S.W. 189, 39 Tex.Cr.R. 553 (Tex. Crim. App. 1898)
• Decision Date: 14 December 1898
• Parties: MATTHEWS v. STATE.

48 S.W. 189

MATTHEWS v. STATE.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.

December 14, 1898.

On motion for rehearing. Granted.

For former opinion, see 47 S. W. 647.

HENDERSON, J.

This case was affirmed at a former day of this term, and now comes before us on motion for rehearing. Appellant urgently contends that this court erred in holding that the indictment on which appellant was convicted was a good and valid indictment. In construing the indictment in the original opinion, we rejected as surplusage the word "on," and held that "cattle" was a sufficient description of the character of property; that is, we held that an indictment which charged "that defendant fraudulently did take, from the possession of M. A. Bradbury, cattle, the same being the corporeal personal property of the said Bradbury, without the consent of the said Bradbury, and with the intent to deprive the owner of the value of the same, and to appropriate it to the use and benefit of him, the said D. L. Matthews," etc., sufficiently described the stolen property. In arriving at that decision, we held that "cattle" was either singular or plural, and, as we construed it in the indictment, meant one head of cattle. Since our attention has been more particularly called to this allegation, it occurs to us that we were wrong in that construction. If, as defined in dictionaries, "cattle" may be either singular or plural, still there is nothing in this indictment to show whether the pleader meant it in the singular or plural sense; that is, the indictment as to the number of cattle charged to have been stolen is uncertain and ambiguous. Our authorities have gone beyond the common law (and the same is true as far as the reported cases of any of the states have come under our observation) in holding that a general description of stolen property is sufficient. And a number of authorities in this state can be cited showing that, in indictments for theft of cattle, a general description of the cattle stolen has been upheld; as beef cattle, one head of neat cattle, etc. See section 1544, under article 382, White's Ann. Pen. Code. And it has been held that an indictment charging theft of a certain number of cattle is sufficient. We take it that the courts have felt justified in authorizing this general method of pleading, under our statutes, which appears to treat cattle as meaning the bovine species; as it makes theft of horses, asses, mules, cattle, hogs, sheep, and goats, distinct offenses,...