West v. State

• Decision Date: 11 May 1895
• Citation: 30 S.W. 1069
• Parties: WEST v. STATE.
• Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

30 S.W. 1069

WEST v. STATE.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.

May 11, 1895.

Appeal from Brown county court; Charles Rogou, Judge.

W. A. West was convicted of illegally giving a prescription to buy whisky, and appeals. Affirmed.

Dram & Bell, for appellant. Mann Trice, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

HENDERSON, J.

The appellant in this case was tried on information that "he did unlawfully and willfully, as a regular practicing physician, give to one Sam See a prescription for the purpose of enabling the applicant, Sam See, to purchase intoxicating liquors without personally examining the said Sam See, and finding him actually sick and in need of said intoxicating liquor and stimulant prescribed as medicine," etc.; said prescription alleged to have been given in a local option precinct in said Brown county, describing same. We have carefully examined the information in said case, and, in our opinion, it is sufficient.

Appellant assigns as error that the jurors Burton and McGaughey had sat in a similar case against the same defendant for giving a prescription, for another party, on another occasion, and had convicted him, and were therefore disqualified to try this case. Said jurors were shown to have formed no opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the defendant in this case, and we think they were qualified jurors. Nor were the same jurors disqualified because they stated that they had formed an opinion as to the guilt of the defendant in violating the local option law in Brownwood. These same jurors stated they had no opinion as to whether or not defendant had illegally given Sam See a prescription to buy whisky which he was not authorized to do under the law. Nor did the fact that all jurors summoned in this case may have formed opinions that the notices required by law had been legally posted affect their qualifications as jurors. As to the juror Smith we see no objection to the action of the court with reference to his examination as to his qualifications as a juror. The record, moreover, does not show that he sat as a juror in the case.

As to the objection urged by appellant that the order declaring the result of the local option election was inadmissible because the records of said commissioners' court showed that the paper in which the notices of the election are published was selected by the commissioners' court instead of by the county judge himself, the county judge is presiding officer of said commissioners' court, and whether the newspaper was chosen by himself alone, or in connection with the commissioners, in our opinion, would make no difference.

Nor do we believe...