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157 Tex. Crim. 244

248 S.W.2d 488

Hampton v. State

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas

Decided March 26, 1952

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas · decided 1952-03-26

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““Sec. 6. This Statute shall apply to all Statements of Fact relating to any Motion heard in the case, but the facts adduced in connection with any Motion shall be filed with the clerk separately from the facts adduced bearing upon the guilt or innocence of the defendant”

quoted by 1 later decision, including 171 Tex. Crim. 140 - Selvidge v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1952-03-26

How this case has been cited

Cited by 16 later decisions — most recently October 1997

16 state decisions

5019521960197019801990decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

WOODLEY, Judge.

¶1The conviction is for driving a motor vehicle upon a public highway while intoxicated, the jury having assessed the punishment at 30 days in jail.

¶2Clifton Alexander, a police officer of the city of Abilene while on patrol duty, met appellant who was alone in the car he was driving. Officer Alexander observed that appellant’s car was weaving from one side of the road to the other. He turned his car and followed appellant, and finally, by means of his siren and signal lights, induced him to stop.

¶3The officer testified that appellant had the odor of alcohol on his breath; that he had difficulty in standing or walking and in producing his drivers license, and that he was definitely drunk.

¶4Complaint is made of the fact that the county attorney was permitted to amend the complaint by inserting therein the date “5th day of September 1951.”

¶5No motion to quash the complaint nor exception thereto was filed, but appellant, after the state had rested, moved for an instructed verdict in which he alleged such amendment of the complaint to have been made during the progress of the trial and without the knowledge or consent of appellant.

¶6There appears in the statement of facts, containing the evidence adduced bearing upon the guilt or innocence of appel*246lant, the motion filed by appellant and the evidence heard in the absence of the jury. We are not authorized to consider this testimony.

¶7Art. 759a, Sec. 6, Vernon’s Ann. C.C.P., provides that the facts adduced in connection with any motion shall be filed with the clerk separately from the facts adduced bearing upon the guilt or innocence of the defendant. Neither the motion nor the testimony heard thereon should have been included in the statement of facts proper.

¶8The question raised was decided against appellant’s contention in Chapman v. State, 135 Tex. Cr. R. 298, 119 SW (2) 1047, wherein we held that the court’s action in permitting the complaint to be amended by filling in the date it had been sworn to was correct, the amendment being as to a matter of form and not of substance.

¶9Bills of Exception Nos. 4, 5 and 6 are addressed to the argument of the county attorney. We see no error in the remarks complained of in Bills of Exception Nos. 4 and 5 wherein the county attorney, in arguing for a jail term, compared the driving of an automobile by an intoxicated driver to the firing of a pistol into a crowd, both of which would endanger a lot of lives, and that a jail term was the only way to “stop this.”

¶10As to the argument complained of in Bill of Exception No. 6, appellant’s objection was sustained. There was no request for instruction to the jury to disregard the argument, and no exception reserved.

¶11It follows that reversible error is not shown by this bill. See Branch’s Ann. P.C. Sec. 362, p. 204.

¶12The evidence is sufficient to sustain the conviction and no reversible error appears.

¶13The judgment is affirmed.

¶14Opinion approved by the court.

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