Taliaferro v. State

• Decision Date: 28 January 1942
• Docket Number: No. 21868.,21868.
• Citation: 158 S.W.2d 493
• Parties: TALIAFERRO v. STATE.
• Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

Page 493

158 S.W.2d 493

TALIAFERRO v. STATE.

No. 21868.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.

January 28, 1942.

Appeal from District Court, Refugio County; Howard P. Green, Judge.

Carl Taliaferro was convicted of murder, and he appeals.

Reversed and remanded.

John L. Poulter, of Fort Worth, for appellant.

Spurgeon E. Bell, State's Atty., of Austin, for the State.

GRAVES, Judge.

Appellant was tried for the murder of John Ryals, and by the jury given a penalty of twenty-five years in the penitentiary.

The facts were vigorously contested, and there were many sharp contradictions between appellant's witnesses and those of the State. Evidently the appellant's version was that accepted by the jury, and under the State's testimony the following was shown:

John Ryals, the deceased, was the proprietor of an all-night cafe and beer tavern in the town of Refugio. Judie Keith, a sister of appellant's wife, was a waitress, and worked for Ryals. On Armistice Day 1940, appellant, who worked at Corpus Christi in a grocery store, in company with his wife, came to Refugio to see Judie Keith, who had separated from and divorced her husband. Appellant, his wife and Judie had been drinking both beer and whisky, and had been rather noisy at another cafe in Refugio before the time of the trouble in question herein. In the evening around 9 or 9:30 appellant and his wife came to the cafe of the deceased, and, after ordering some beer, they engaged the deceased in conversation, which eventually turned on the subject of the disagreement of Judie, appellant's wife's sister, and her ex-husband. At such time appellant and his wife were blaming Judie for this separation and divorce, so the State's witnesses said. The deceased remarked that Judie's work in the cafe was satisfactory to him, and it was no concern of his what she did when not on duty. The argument continued until the deceased requested appellant and wife to leave the cafe, at which time some vigorous cursing was indulged in by both appellant and his wife, so the State's witnesses again said. The deceased and appellant then engaged in a scuffle which ended in their going to the floor, the deceased on top. About this time appellant's wife struck the deceased with a sugar bowl over the head. Parties then intervened and found appellant's knife sticking in the back of the deceased, and, after separating the combatants, the deceased was found to have fourteen knife wounds on his body and head, from the effect of such various wounds he died about ten days thereafter. Appellant left the cafe immediately, and was later apprehended at San Angelo soon after Mr. Ryals' death.

There are numerous bills of exceptions in the record, many of which are without merit, and will doubtless not again be present upon a further trial.

Bill No. 1 we think evidences no error. Appellant filed an application for a suspended sentence, and it is well settled that a witness to the good character of the accused may be asked upon cross-examination whether he has heard of rumors or of particular and specific charges or acts of the accused inconsistent with the character he was called to prove,—not to establish the truth of such charges but to test the credibility of the witness and enable the jury to weigh his evidence. Thompson v. State, 138 Tex.Cr.R. 491, 136 S.W.2d 840; Garza v. State, 129 Tex.Cr.R. 443, 88 S.W.2d 113.

We think the trial court was correct in allowing the State to show the drunken condition of appellant's wife at the scene of the homicide, when she was interrogated as a witness in order to affect, if it did so, her powers of observation and recollection as to the events that happened at the time Mr. Ryals received his...