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27 Tex. Ct. App. 586

Woods v. State

Court of Appeals of Texas

Decided March 15, 1889

Court of Appeals of Texas · decided 1889-03-15

Tried below before the Hon. B. F. Turner, County Judge. This conviction was for wantonly killing a horse, and the penalty assessed was a fine of forty dollars. J. B. Young testified, for the State, in substance, that he owned the horse mentioned in the information. He bought that animal from John Burson in August, 1887, at which time the horse was nearly two years old. Witness thought the animal was a gelding, but did ndt throw him down to verify that opinion.

Decided 1889-03-15

Willson, Judge.

¶1In this case the Assistant Attorney General confesses error, there being no proof of venue in the record.

¶2In view of another trial, it is proper that we should say that the court’s charge upon circumstantial evidence went too far in instructing the jury .that “if the facts and circumstances in *590evidence could not be accounted for upon any reasonable grounds consistently with the innocence of defendant, and were such as to establish the guilt of the defendant with a degree of certainty to satisfy the mind of a man of ordinary understanding, and so to convince him that he would act upon that conviction,” etc., they would convict the defendant. Defendant excepted to this instruction and requested a correct charge upon circumstantial evidence, which was refused, and he excepted; and his exception is, we think, well taken.

Opinion delivered March 15, 1889.

¶3Charge number two requested by defendant and refused by the court was a part of the law of the case not embraced in the court's charge, and it was error to refuse it.

¶4Because of the errors named, the judgment is reversed and the cause is remanded.

¶5Reversed and remanded.

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