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418 S.W.2d 687

Wilson v. State

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas · decided 1967-06-21

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1967-06-21

How this case has been cited

Cited by 13 later decisions — most recently January 2018

13 state decisions

60196719701980199020002010decided

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.

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¶1OPINION

WOODLEY, Presiding Judge.

¶2The offense is unlawfully carrying a pistol; the punishment, 6 months in jail.

¶3Trial was before a jury on a plea of not guilty.

¶4The only ground of error raised on appeal is the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the conviction. Appellant contends that his case falls within the exception to the pistol law (Art. 484, Vernon’s Ann. P.C.) which excludes from the operation of the statute “the carrying of arms on one’s own premises.”

¶5The jury was charged as follows:

“As a part of the law in this case, a defendant has the legal right to carry a pistol upon premises of which he has control and which are subject to his *688use; therefore, if you find from the evidence, or have a reasonable doubt thereof, that the carrying of the pistol by the defendant was solely upon premises under his control and of which he had the use, you will find the defendant not guilty and so say by your verdict. In this connection, you are instructed that the terms ‘control’ and ‘use’ do not mean exclusive control and use.”

¶6Appellant was a tenant in a large apartment complex containing several hundred units in a number of separate buildings. On the evening in question another tenant, Matt Crawford, held a birthday party for his wife at the apartment recreation building. After the party was over several persons, including appellant, stayed to take the things back to the Crawford apartment that had been taken there for use at the party.

¶7Appellant and Matt Crawford got into an argument on the driveway immediately adjacent to the apartment building in which appellant leased and occupied an upstairs apartment. Arthur Simmons testified that he walked up to where the argument was taking • place and took a knife out of appellant’s hand, and that at the same time several of Matt Crawford’s relatives took a knife out of Crawford’s hand. Appellant immediately left the scene and was seen going into a neighbor’s apartment located in the opposite direction from his own. Approximately ten or fifteen minutes later, appellant returned and had a pistol in his hand. Simmons testified that appellant did not come out of his own apartment; that he (Simmons) was facing appellant’s apartment, talking with other people, and that he would have known had appellant gone into his own apartment. Appellant accosted Simmons and the latter turned around to walk away, but was hit by appellant on the head from behind with the pistol, and was knocked unconscious.

¶8There was no. direct testimony that appellant was seen with the pistol at any place other than the driveway adjacent to the building in which he lived. The testimony showed that there was a ten foot wide strip of grass between the sidewalk and the apartment building, and that there was a parking lot on the other side of the driveway from the building. The manager of the apartment complex testified that the grass, sidewalks, driveway and parking lot were for the use of all tenants of the complex.

¶9Viewed in the light most favorable to the state, we find the evidence sufficient to sustain the jury’s finding that the carrying of the pistol by appellant was not solely upon premises under his control and that reasonably necessary to the use and enjoyment of such premises.

¶10The judgment is affirmed.

¶11OPINION

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