Williams v. State

• Decision Date: 19 October 1887
• Citation: 5 S.W. 655
• Parties: WILLIAMS v. STATE.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

5 S.W. 655

WILLIAMS v. STATE.

Court of Appeals of Texas.

October 19, 1887.

Appeal from district court, Comanche county; T. H. CONNER, Judge.

The appellant was convicted for breaking into the Comanche county jail on the night of March 28, 1886, and releasing therefrom certain prisoners confined therein, one of whom was his son, Henry F. Williams. A term of four years in the penitentiary was the penalty assessed against him. Number 138 of Willson's Criminal Forms, under which this indictment was formulated, reads as follows: "A. B., on the ____ day of ____, 18__, in the county and state aforesaid, did unlawfully, willfully, and by force break into the jail of said county, for the purpose of effecting the rescue and escape therefrom of C. D., who was a prisoner then and there lawfully confined in the said jail."

In substance, the evidence showed that, at the time alleged in the indictment, Henry Williams, the son of the defendant, (and the cousin of John Williams, charged in another indictment with this same offense,) and two others were confined in the county jail, charged with different felonies. On the night in question, five men entered the lower apartments of the jail, by unbolting unlocked doors. When they were confronted by the jailer, they covered him with firearms, and compelled him to precede them upstairs and open the prison cells. They then took the prisoners and the jailer to a neighboring thicket, where they provided themselves and Henry Williams with horses, dismissed the other prisoners, and released the jailer. It was too dark for the jailer to distinguish the faces of any of the five men. He observed, however, that there was a gray horse and a blue roan horse among the animals provided by the men. Abundant testimony showed that defendant, John Williams, George Dennis, and two others, never identified so far as the record shows, were in the neighborhood of Comanche on the day and evening preceding the jail delivery, and that their traveling outfit comprised a no-top double buggy, and, among others, a gray and a blue roan horse. Pursuers took the trail of the five men within less than two hours after the jail delivery. They struck the trail of a two-horse buggy and three horsemen a few miles from Comanche, and followed it to a point where the horsemen and buggy separated. Thence they followed the trail of the buggy to an isolated and abandoned ranch, where they found it and a blue roan and a sorrel horse in the possession of John Williams and George Dennis, whom they arrested and sent back to Comanche. They then resumed the pursuit of the three horsemen, who abandoned the main road, and traveled over a rough and broken country. They trailed them to a ranch-house situated in a pasture, where they (the men pursued) spent the second night after the jail delivery. The defendant was identified on this trial as one of those three men. The pursuit was resumed early the next morning, but was abandoned a few miles from the ranch, the trail being lost. Defendant was afterwards arrested, while in hiding, in Nolan county.

Shropshire, Thurman & Jenkins, for appellant. Asst. Atty. Gen. Davidson, for the State.

WHITE, P. J.

Appellant has been tried and stands convicted under article 212, Pen. Code, which provides that "if any person shall break into any jail for the purpose of effecting the rescue or escape of a prisoner therein confined, or for the purpose of aiding the escape of any prisoner so confined, he shall be punished by imprisonment in the penitentiary for a term not less than two nor more than six years."

The indictment upon which he was tried is in proper form, and is sufficient. Willson, Crim. Forms, No. 138. Appellant asked no special instructions in addition to the charge of the court as given to the jury, but saved a general exception to the charge given, to-wit, "that it did not charge the law in the cause." No special defect is pointed out, but it is insisted, in brief of counsel, that the charge is radically defective, notwithstanding it contained the statutory declaration of the crime in terms used above, because it omitted to explain to the jury the meaning and character of the word "break" as used in the statute. It is insisted that the definition of the word "breaking" in burglary, to-wit, that the slightest force is sufficient, as by the lifting of a latch, etc., (Pen. Code, art. 708,) does not and cannot be made to apply to this character of case, since no legal definition of the word "break" as here used is given, as is done in burglary, and that in such conditions the rule is that all words not specially defined are to be taken and construed in the sense in which they are understood in common language, (Pen. Code, art. 10.) We think the unbolting of the door of the house by the parties in the first instance was sufficient, in contemplation of this statute, to constitute a breaking, under the circumstances of the case.

If it be conceded, however, that the failure to define the meaning of the word "break" is erroneous, there being no special exception...