Steel v. State, 42715
| Decision Date | 18 November 1970 |
| Docket Number | No. 42715,42715 |
| Citation | 459 S.W.2d 649 |
| Parties | Jimmy STEEL, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee. |
| Court | Texas Court of Criminal Appeals |
Al Clyde, Fort Worth, for appellant.
Sam Cleveland, Stephenville, and Jim D. Vollers, State's Atty., Austin, for the State.
This is an appeal from a conviction for murder with malice with the punishment assessed by the jury at 41 years.
The appeal in this cause was previously abated. See Steel v. State, 453 S.W.2d 486. The trial court having taken steps to assure the appellant of effective aid of appellate counsel, the appeal has been returned to this court.
The indictment charged the appellant with the murder of Sharon Curtis, shown by the evidence to be his three and a half year old stepdaughter.
The record reflects that on Tuesday, June 4, 1968, the 21 year old appellant, his wife, Sarah Steel, her daughter Sharon Curtis by a previous marriage and their daughter Helen went fishing in the Brazos creek. The family arrived home in the early afternoon and Mrs. Steel left to purchase some pillows. When she returned she heard Sharon, the deceased, crying in the bathroom. Upon inquiring appellant informed her he had spanked the child. Mrs. Steel departed again to take her sister to her home. Upon her subsequent return she discovered the deceased still crying and was informed by the deceased that her daddy had hurt her.
The next morning (June 5) Mrs. Steel noticed that Sharon was covered with bruises and was holding her head and stomach. At noon Mrs. Steel requested appellant's permission to take the child to a doctor, but he refused the request. The child's stomach began to swell that afternoon and Mrs. Steel repeated her request which was again refused. That night the deceased cried 'a lot in her sleep.'
On Thursday morning (June 6) the child began to vomit profusely and her eyes appeared to be glassy. Late Thursday afternoon the appellant finally gave his wife permission to call a doctor. The doctor, however, said that it would be too expensive to make a house call so he merely called in a prescription to the drugstore for suppositories and informed the mother to bring the child to his office the next morning. The child was given a suppository, but in a few minutes the child appeared to be dead. Mrs. Steel ran next door and asked the neighbor to call a doctor. The neighbor called the police.
On June 7, 1968, an autopsy was performed. Dr. D. B. Murray testified the deceased's left pelvis had a fresh fracture and there was a ruptured intestine which had resulted in peritonitis. He also found bruises on the forehead, the face, the cheek, and the back of the head. Inside the skull the brain was congested and swollen with edema fluid so that the lower part of the brain was deformed by compression. Dr. Murray related that death could have resulted from either the untreated peritonitis resulting from the ruptured intestine or the edema of the brain, both appearing to be due to external blows with a blunt object like a foot in a boot. He found no disease, deformity or other reason for the death. The testimony of both Dr. Murray and Dr. Hamilton reflected that the blows to the head and ruptured intestine had occurred within one or two days prior to death.
On the night of June 7 the appellant was questioned by the authorities and given his constitutional warnings. At first he insisted the bruises on the deceased's body were caused by a fall on some rocks while the family had been fishing. When informed that the autopsy report reflected a beating or a kicking, appellant gave a written confession admitting that while his wife was away from home on the afternoon of June 4 he had given the deceased a whipping for 'messing in her pants.' He stated, He acknowledged he kicked and hit her on previous occasions and had called her a bastard and other names. He also stated that '(o)nce she was carried to Dr. O'Quinn by her grandmother.'
In his initial ground of error the appellant contends '(t)he trial court erred in restricting the testimony of the defendant's witness, Mrs. Eugene Howard, as to the child's bruised and burned condition to a period of two weeks prior to the child's death.'
Mrs. Howard, a neighbor of the Steels for a period of the two months prior to the deceased's death, testified that she had observed various bruises on the deceased within two weeks of the death, and that shortly before such demise she observed the deceased had a burned mouth which Mrs. Steel stated resulted from hot gravy. Mrs. Howard was not permitted to testify that in the two months she had known the deceased the child always had bruises on her body. She related she had never seen either the appellant or his wife inflict injuries on the deceased and had never inquired as to the cause of the apparent bruises.
If the court erred in excluding this limited portion of Mrs. Howard's testimony, we fail to perceive that it was so prejudicial as to call for a reversal. See 5 Tex.Jur.2d, Appeal and Error--Criminal, Sec. 448, p. 715. The appellant does not point out what 'full and complete defense' he was denied from presenting by the exclusion of this testimony. Ground of error #1 is overruled.
In grounds of error #2 and #3 appellant claims the court erred in permitting Mrs. Edna Weeks to testify as to events transpiring more than two months prior to the death of the deceased 'in connection with her condition,' while restricting the defense to two weeks, and further erred in permitting the witness to relate what she told the appellant and his wife about a doctor's statement since the same was hearsay.
Mrs. Weeks, the maternal grandmother of the deceased, was called as a rebuttal witness for the State. She related that in March of 1968 she had taken the deceased to a Dr. O'Quinn. Over objection she testified she then told appellant and his wife that Dr. O'Quinn wanted the deceased taken to a baby specialist in Fort Worth. Her testimony did not in any way describe the deceased's condition or difficulties at the time. Further, Mrs. Steel had earlier testified without objection that the several months prior to the death the appellant had injured the deceased and her mother had taken the deceased to a doctor who advised that the deceased be taken to a Fourth Worth doctor and that the appellant had refused to do so. While denying inflicting the earlier injury, the appellant on cross-examination admitted Dr. O'Quinn wanted a specialist in Fort Worth to examine the deceased. His written statement also reflected that Mrs. Weeks had taken the child to Dr. O'Quinn.
The...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Hankins v. State
...(Tex.Cr.App.1977); Swift v. State, 509 S.W.2d 586 (Tex.Cr.App.1974); Corbett v. State, 493 S.W.2d 940 (Tex.Cr.App.1973); Steel v. State, 459 S.W.2d 649 (Tex.Cr.App.1970). The admission or confession must unequivocally admit the commission of the very same act charged in order to constitute ......
-
Corbett v. State
...not be given where there is in evidence an admission or a confession by the accused admitting that he killed the deceased. Steel v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 459 S.W.2d 649; Patterson v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 416 S.W.2d 816; Cavazos v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 365 S.W.2d 178; 4 Branch's Anno.P.C., Secti......
-
Swift v. State
...that he killed the deceased. Hogan v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 496 S.W.2d 594; Corbett v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 493 S.W.2d 940; Steel v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 459 S.W.2d 649. Where there is direct testimony, although it comes from an accomplice witness, a charge on circumstantial evidence is not req......
-
Williams v. State
...and his testimony at trial are considered together, we find that a charge on circumstantial evidence was not required. Steel v. State, 459 S.W.2d 649 (Tex.Cr.App.1970); Hogan v. This case may be distinguished from Gamboa v. State, 528 S.W.2d 247 (Tex.Cr.App.1975), and Ellis v. State, 551 S.......