Taylor v. State

• Decision Date: 20 February 1918
• Docket Number: (No. 4771.)
• Citation: Taylor v. State, 227 S.W. 679, 88 Tex. Crim. 470 (Tex. Crim. App. 1918)
• Parties: TAYLOR v. STATE.
• Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

227 S.W. 679

TAYLOR v.STATE.

(No. 4771.)

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.

February 20, 1918.

Rehearing Denied February 16, 1921.

Appeal from District Court, Jones County; John B. Thomas, Judge.

R. L. Taylor was convicted of assault with intent to kill his wife, and he appeals.Affirmed.

E. T. Brooks and Jas. P. Stinson, both of Abilene, for appellant.

E. B. Hendricks, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

PRENDERGAST, J.

Appellant was convicted of an assault with intent to kill his wife, and his punishment assessed at six years in the penitentiary.

Appellant and his wife had been married for about four years.Early in March, 1917, she left and quit him, it seems, the second time.She swore that he cursed and abused her and threatened to kill her and told her that "she wasn't decent enough for white folks to live with," which was the immediate cause of her quitting and leaving him.She went to her mother's.Appellant blamed her mother and her brother, with whom her mother lived, for her quitting him.He sought to have an interview with her to try to induce her to return and live with him, and had one of his brothers-in-law to see her for that purpose.She not only declined to return to him, but also declined to see him and talk the matter over with him.When this was reported to him he said, "She will be damned sorry of it."He made threats against her kinsfolk, and, it seems, especially against her mother and one of her brothers.

The uncontradicted testimony shows that on March 26, 1917, he armed himself with a double-barreled shotgun, waited until in the night, and slipped up to a window of the house where his wife was sitting and attempted to assassinate her.He shot her through the window, making what the doctor says was a very "extensive, ragged gunshot wound" and place large enough to almost put the hand into it in her side and back.Her brother then went out of the house to try to catch him and run him off and prevent him shooting his sister again.He thereupon shot at her brother twice and then ran off and made his escape from her brother, but was found later that night and arrested.

He was indicted May 29, 1917.The cause was set for trial on June 13th.On that date, on his application, the case was continued until June 20th.On June 20th, when the case was again called for trial, he filed a second application for a continuance, which was overruled.The jury was thereupon duly selected and sworn, and he was then duly arraigned.When called upon to plead, he pleaded guilty.The court fully complied with the statute regulating that subject.CodeCr. Proc. arts. 565, 566.The judgment of the court states that, when the defendant in person pleaded guilty—

"thereupon the said defendant was admonished by the court of the consequences of said plea, and the said defendant persisted in pleading guilty; and it plainly appearing to the court that the said defendant is sane, and that he is uninfluenced in making said plea by any consideration of fear, or by any persuasion, or delusive hope of pardon prompting him to confess his guilt, the said plea of guilty is by the court received and here now entered of record upon the minutes of the court as the plea herein of said defendant."

And thereupon the trial proceeded before a jury with the result as stated.

The record shows that at some time after this his attorneys filed a written plea which says:

"Now comes the defendantR. L. Taylor by his attorneys and files in this behalf his plea of guilty herein, and in this connection further pleads that at the time of the commission of said offense the said defendantR. L. Taylor was insane and was not mentally capable of knowing the nature and quality of the acts committed by him."

This is not signed by appellant, but signed by his attorneys alone.

The record further shows that said written plea was not called to the attention of the court nor to that of the state's attorney, and neither the court nor the state's attorney knew that said written plea had been filed, and that it was never presented or called to the attention of the jury.

It will be noted that even this plea filed in this way by his attorneys made no claim or intimation that he was then insane, but solely it claimed that he was insane on March 26th, when he shot and attempted and intended to kill his wife—quite a different thing.

Appellant contends that because of the filing of said written plea by his attorneys that shifted the burden of proof from him to the state to show he was insane at the time he shot and tried to kill his wife, and, as the state did not affirmatively prove that he was sane at that time, that he was entitled to an acquittal, and, because the court refused to grant him a new trial on that ground, that he is entitled to a reversal.Of course, if he had been insane at the time he shot his wife and had proved it to the satisfaction of the jury on the trial, then in law he would not have been guilty of assault with intent to kill his wife, and would have been entitled to an acquittal, but the record shows that he introduced no proof whatever to establish his insanity at that time or at any other time.

It is so well settled by the very many decisions of this court that, when an accused seeks an acquittal because of insanity at the time he committed the offense, the law presumes he was sane and imposes upon him the burden of showing that he was insane, and does not require the state to prove under any such circumstances that he was sane, that it is unnecessary to cite these decisions.

This is quite a different thing from that presented to the judge when an accused, arraigned for trial, wants to plead guilty.When that question is presented to the trial judge, the law requires him to then and there satisfy himself that the accused is then sane and requires him to admonish the accused of the consequences of his plea of guilty and prohibits him from accepting such plea unless it plainly appears to him, the judge, that he is then sane, and that he is uninfluenced in making such plea by any consideration of fear, or by any persuasion or delusive hope of pardon prompting him to confess his guilt.As shown, all this was thoroughly and completely done before the judge would receive the plea.Such matter is not to be, under any circumstances, submitted to the jury for it to determine these questions, but to the judge solely.No issue is made which a jury could try until either a plea of not guilty or a plea of guilty is made by the accused and entered by the court.

In Coleman v. State, 35 Tex. Cr. R. 406, 33 S. W. 1083, in discussing when an accused attempts to plead guilty the court must warn him, etc., and be satisfied that he is sane, through Judge Davidson, this court held:

"In our opinion, however, this is a matter which must be presented to the court, and the court must make its findings thereon, and this must be entered of record in connection with the plea of guilty.These prerequisites to the validity of the plea and the acceptance thereof by the court are indispensable, and must be made manifest of record.They cannot be supplied by inference, intendment, or presumption.SeeCode Crim. Proc. arts. 518, 519, 538;Saunders v. State, 10 Tex. Crim. App. 336;Wallace v. State, Id. 407;Frosh v. State, 11 Tex. Crim. App. 280;Sanders v. State, 18 Tex. Crim. App. 372."

In this case, as shown, all these matters were expressly found and entered of record by the judge, in the judgment of the court quoted above.

In Burton v. State, 33 Tex. Cr. R. 138, 25 S. W. 782, appellant thereunder was indicted for murder, convicted of murder in the second degree, and his punishment assessed at 25 years in the penitentiary.In that case it was shown that appellant had agreed with the district attorney to plead guilty of murder in the second degree on condition that the state would introduce no evidence other than that of the sheriff.When this was called to the attention of the court, the court refused to permit the plea under such conditions, but stated he would admit the plea of guilty to the charge of murder, and that the jury should determine whether it was first or second degree and the punishment to be inflicted.The judgment was attacked by affidavits to the effect that the defendant therein was of weak mind and scarcely responsible for his acts, and by the affidavit of a doctor to the effect that from an examination of defendant, as well as his personal knowledge, he believed him to be of such weak mind as to render him irresponsible for his act, and sought a new trial and reversal on that sort of showing.The trial judge therein made an affidavit to the effect that before he received the plea of guilty he explained the result of such plea to him and properly admonished him and satisfied himself from an examination of the defendant alone at the time that he was sane and was making the plea of guilty from no influence of fear or persuasion or hope of pardon.The judgment therein as to these matters was exactly the same as it is in this case.This court through Judge Davidson in that case held that the court's action was in accordance with the statute and sustained the conviction.See, also, Miller v. State, 58 Tex. Cr. R. 600, 126 S. W. 864;Doans v. State, 36 Tex. Cr. R. 468, 37 S. W. 751;Evers v. State, 32 Tex. Cr. R. 283, 22 S. W. 1019; and other cases.

In his brief appellant states that the grounds upon which he asks a reversal are stated in his motion for new trial, and that his main reliance is on that motion.The state filed in writing a contest of each and every ground of said motion.One ground of the motion was that the court erred in receiving appellant's plea of guilty and at the same time receiving his plea of insanity filed herein.In contest and denial of that ground the state specifically alleged "that, when the indictment was read, defendant's counsel and himself in person both stated that it was his desire to...