Pridgen v. State

• Decision Date: 31 October 1868
• Citation: 31 Tex. 420
• Parties: WILEY W. PRIDGEN v. THE STATE.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

31 Tex. 420

WILEY W. PRIDGEN

v.THE STATE.

Supreme Court of Texas.

October, 1868.

Article 612 of the penal code reads as follows: “Where a defendant accused of murder seeks to justify himself on the ground of threats against his own life, he may be permitted to introduce evidence of the threats made, but the same shall not be regarded as affording a justification for the offense, unless it be shown that at the time of the homicide the person killed by some act then done manifested an intention to execute the threat so made. In every instance where proof of threats has been made it shall be competent to introduce evidence of the general character of the deceased. Such evidence shall extend only to an inquiry as to whether the deceased was a man of violent or dangerous character, or a man of kind and inoffensive disposition, or whether he was such a person as might reasonably be expected to execute a threat made.” Pas. Dig. art. 2270, note 672. The court below held, that there must be a predicate proved, which establishes that at the time of the homicide the deceased must have done some act manifesting an intention to carry the supposed threats into execution, and that such acts were questions of law for the court, and not of fact for the jury. This was error.

Whether or not there be any evidence is a question for the judge; its sufficiency for the purpose relied on is for the jury.

The whole object of proving threats is to ascertain the mind of the prisoner at the very moment of the commission of the homicide; every circumstance which tends to prove this is important, because a murder is a matter of intent, and cannot exist without malice.

Whether or not the threats are sufficient to establish reasonable fear is a question for the jury. Rector v. The People, 19 Wend. 589;Howell v. Georgia, 5 Ga. 54.

To explain the circumstances which surround the parties it would seem that things antecedent may be proved.

In civil cases the court may review the whole record and affirm the judgment if the whole facts warrant it; but in criminal cases the denial of any legal right is sufficient cause of reversal.

The effect of the ruling in this case was to say that the circumstances surrounding the parties developed on the trial were not sufficient to extenuate or justify notwithstanding the threats. But this was a question of fact for the jury, to be responded to under the charge of the court.

All we decide is, that under the circumstances the appellant was entitled to evidence of threats against himself by the deceased, and whether there were any acts done by the deceased at the time of the killing which extenuate or justify is a question of fact for the jury; and it follows as a sequence that the character of the deceased may be proved. Pas. Dig. art. 2270.

LINDSAY, J., dissented. He insisted that article 2270 introduced no new rule of evidence, but that if the threats can be established it makes the homicide justifiable, whereas at common law it was manslaughter.

The judge is the exclusive judge as to the admissibility of evidence. In criminal cases the jury are the exclusive judges of the facts, but not of the law. Pas. Dig. art. 3058.

Under article 2270 the accused may prove threats. The language is not imperative. When the evidence is admitted, the jury must determine whether the threats were made, and were they communicated to the prisoner. But before they are admitted the court must determine whether, in view of all the acts done at the time of the homicide, there were facts which superinduced the legal necessity or judicial propriety of permitting the accused to introduce proof of threats.

Justification is a deduction of law from the facts. Threats alone cannot constitute it. And there could be no justification, unless the deceased at the time of the homicide, was manifesting, by a positive act then done, an intention to execute the threats.

This court should not for light cause revise the judicial discretion of the inferior court.

APPEAL from Victoria. The case was tried before Hon. WESLEY OGDEN, one of the district judges.

The value of the precedent in this case must depend upon the facts proved at the trial. Several witnesses were present at the tragedy. Some were sworn for the prisoner and some for the state. Yet there was such near agreement as rarely occurs. The killing was at the store of Henry F. Spear, at the Missouri Valley postoffice, in Victoria county, on the 12th October, 1867. The deceased, Cornelius Pridgen, and the witness, Daniel Weiseger, were sitting at the storehouse door of Spear, when the accused, Pridgen, and Spear rode up and saluted them with usual politeness. Brown did not return the salutation. Pridgen entered the store and sat down in a chair. Brown entered by another door and took a seat upon the counter. Both were armed with six-shoolers. Brown asked Pridgen if he had found his horse. Pridgen said that he had not. Brown said, “He is in your brot??er's field.” Pridgen then said, “I think it was unkind and ungenerous in you to employ the young man Thompson. He had previously been in my employment, and I was on his bail bond, and could at any time deliver him up.” Brown replied that he supposed Thompson was a free man, and seemed to deny any knowledge of the suretyship. And here Brown complained that Pridgen had accused him with being concerned with Thompson in stealing the horse. This Pridgen denied, and demanded Brown's authority for the accusation. Brown pointed to the witness, Weiseger. Weiseger, being appealed to by Pridgen, stated what he had told Brown, and who was his author. Pridgen concluded the conversation by saying, “I do not care for you,” at the same time rising from his chair. To which Brown instantly replied, “No, and nobody cares for you,” as he descended from the counter. No other words were spoken, except the remark by Pridgen, “Do you draw your six-shooter?” or, “Don't draw your six-shooter.” About the same moment Pridgen fired, and immediately followed it by another shot. Both shots took effect. Brown fell and died almost immediately. His pistol was found girded on behind him. It had not been removed from the scabbard. One witness saw Brown during the dialogue put his hand behind him, as if to adjust his pistol; another witness thought the pistol impeded Brown's descent from the counter, though Pridgen did not fire until he had descended to his feet and taken one step forward. Pridgen had the advantage of having his pistol drawn when he first got upon his feet, or about the same time. Another witness swore positively that Brown made no attempt to draw his pistol, but had his hands at his side when he got upon his feet and until he was shot.

The whole dialogue was an angry conversation (though one witness swore to Pridgen's coolness until he arose from his chair), and when Pridgen said, “I don't care for you,” or, “I don't care who said it,” as others had it, he was much excited. There was evidence that when Brown descended from the counter he took one step forward.

Upon this state of the evidence and at different periods Pridgen offered evidence that Brown had the day previous and two other days before threatened his life, and that he was a dangerous man, likely to execute his threats. The court excluded this evidence, on the ground that no sufficient basis for this proof had been laid. The court added that he was the judge of the circumstances at the time of the killing, and therefore of the admissibility of the evidence. The court charged three degrees of felonious homicide, much in the language of the statute. Pas. Dig. arts. 2251, 2252, 2266, 2267, notes 670, 671, 672. And he refused all charges of excusable homicide in self-defense.

The jury found the defendant guilty of murder in the second degree, and assessed his punishment at five years' imprisonment. The points were all saved by bills of exception, counter-instructions, and motions for a new trial. The defendant appealed.

James H. Bell, for appellant. I. The court below erred in excluding from the jury the testimony offered to prove that the deceased, Brown, had made recent threats against the life of the appellant, which threats were communicated to the appellant; and that the said Brown was a man who might reasonably be expected to execute a threat made.

Pas. Dig. art. 2270; Howell v. The State, 5 Ga. 54; The People v. Rector, 19 Wend. 589.

II. The court erred in refusing instructions asked by defendant's counsel.

E. B. Turner, Attorney Gcneral, relied upon Lander v. The State, 12 Tex. 462.

Three things are necessary to be established, and of those things the court must be the judge before threats can be allowed at all. These things are: 1. Threats against the life of the defendant; 2. Their communication to the defendant; and 3. That the deceased at the time of the killing did some act showing an intention to carry those threats into execution.

This is substantially the common-law rule, and the statute is nothing more than declaratory of a then existing rule. Pas. Dig. art. 2270.

There is nothing to bring the case within any of the provisions of the code as found upon page 450, Pas. Dig. Hinton v. The State, 24 Tex. 454.

CALDWELL, J.

This was an indictment for murder in the district court of Victoria county; trial at the spring term, 1868, and a conviction for murder in the second degree.

During the progress of the trial there were several exceptions to the ruling of the court, all embodied in a motion for a new trial, which was overruled, and the prisoner appealed.

Two errors are relied on for a reversal, all others having been abandoned by counsel for the prisoner in this court.

1. The court erred in its rulings, “in refusing to permit the defendant to make proof of previous threats immediately preceding the shooting, which were communicated to the defendant.”

2. The court erred “in refusing to permit the defendant

to introduce proof of the violent and dangerous character of the...