Appeal from the District Court of Chambers, on change of venue from Liberty. Tried below before Hon. L. B. Hightower.

The appellant was convicted in the first degree for the murder of J. C. Dacour, his punishment being assessed at a life term in the penitentiary.

The one question determined on this appeal was the competency as evidence of a certain statement made by the defendant, and it is not necessary that the case should be more fully stated than is required by the ruling.

It appears from the record that one Charles Brown was arrested upon the charge of having murdered J. C. Lacour, and was arraigned for trial before an examining court; that at that time the defendant was in custody, suspected of the same murder; that he was introduced as a witness for the State and testified against the said Brown on the said examining trial; that he was subsequently placed on his own examining trial in the same court, and being notified that he was at liberty to make a voluntary statement, he declined to make any further statement than he had made on the examining trial of Brown, which had been reduced to writing, and which he adopted as his voluntary statement in the matter of his own examining trial. It is this written statement, originally made on the examining trial of Brown, and subsequently adopted on his own examining trial, and which was introduced in evidence against him on the final trial in the District Court, that is involved in the ruling on this appeal.

As a predicate for the introduction in evidence of the said written statement, the county attorney of Liberty County testified, in substance, that when the defendant was called to the stand on the examining trial of Charles Brown, he testified in behalf of the State and against the said Brown; that his said testimony was reduced to writing, and was then read to, and was signed by the defendant in the presence of the magistrate; that subsequently the defendant was placed upon his examining-trial before the same magistrate, charged with the same offense that was charged against Brown, when he, the witness, representing the State, requested the magistrate, in the presence and hearing of the defendant, to notify the defendant that he was entitled to make a voluntary statement if he desired to, but that such statement could be used in evidence against him. The witness did not remember that the magistrate did so warn the defendant, but thought that he must have done so. The witness then asked the defendant if he wished to make a voluntary statement, to which the defendant replied that he had no statement to make other than the one he had previously made on the examining trial of Brown. That statement was then produced and read to the defendant, who said that it contained the truth, and that he would adopt it as his voluntary statement on that (his own) examining trial.

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