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70 Tex. Crim. 57

153 S.W 871

Scott v. State

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas

Decided January 29, 1913

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas · decided 1913-01-29

<p>1. —Local Option-—Charge of Court—Agency.</p> <p>Where, upon trial of a violation of the local option law, the State’s evidence showed that prosecuting witness gave defendant a couple of dollars to buy whisky for him; that defendant took the money, went into a hotel, and after a few minutes, returned with the whisky; and that the hotel proprietor fled the country on account of prosecutions, the court should have submitted the question of agency. Following Evans v. State, 55 Texas Crim. Rep., 450, and other 'cases.</p> <p>2. —Same—Conduct of Officers—Needed Legislation.</p> <p>■ The officers are not justified in inducing men to commit crimes or in employing others to induce them to commit crimes in order that prosecutions may be instituted, and the court calls attention to the Legislature for appropriate legislation.</p> <p>3. —Same—Charge of Court—Agency—-Defensive Matter.</p> <p>Where, upon trial of a violation of the local option law, the evidence raised the question of agency, the court should have submitted a charge thereon, although defendant testified in his own behalf, denying the entire transaction.</p> <p>4. —Same—Buie Stated—Charge of Court—Practice.</p> <p>The law requires that in all felony eases all the issues raised by the evidence must be submitted to 'the jury in a proper charge, and the court is not relieved from doing so because the defendant denies the testimony of the State’s witness. Following Keith v. State, 50 Texas Crim. Rep., 63.</p>

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1913-01-29

How this case has been cited

Cited by 7 later decisions — most recently December 1933

7 state decisions

50191319201930decided

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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¶1 OH REHEARIHG.

¶2 February 26, 1913.

DAVIDSON, Presiding Judge.

¶3 On a former day of the term the judgment herein was reversed and the cause remanded, because the court failed to submit the issue of agency. The opinion speaks for itself. It is not intended to review that question. There is no reason given or shown why the cases cited should be overruled and a different doctrine announced. The State in its motion, however, insists that the reason why this case should be affirmed and the court did not err in refusing and failing to charge upon the doctrine of agency, is found in the fact that appellant testified in his own behalf, denying the transaction, and in the cases cited by the State the defendant did not testify it is said. The proposition insisted upon in the motion for rehearing' seems to be that if the defendant testifies denying the transaction, that, therefore, the court is relieved from charging on the issues made by other facts in the case, and that inasmuch as he denies procuring the whisky or selling it to the purchaser, that, therefore, the doctrine of agency was not in the case arising on the State’s testimony and other facts of. the case. This is not the law. The statute requires, and all the 'decisions so hold, that all issues of the case must be presented without reference to what .witnesses testify to those facts, or which side places them before the jury. If the contention of the district attorney, for he files the motion for rehearing, is to be sustained as the law, it would lead to the inevitable legal conclusion that wherever the defendant testified to a fact the jury would be bound to accept it as true. The defendant testified in this case denying the State’s case so far as procuring the whisky, and especially in selling it to the alleged purchaser. If this is to be taken as true, to the extent that it relieves him of being the agent under the State’s testimony or other evidence in the record, then it should be taken as true for everything he testifies, and the jury in that event would be compelled to acquit because his testimony was true. It would hardly be asserted as.a correct proposition that because the defendant testifies to a state of facts in contravention of other facts in the case, that, therefore, his testimony is true, and ought to be accepted as true by the jury and submitted upon that theory by the court in the charge. The law has been held to be the reverse 'of the district attorney’s proposition. In Keith v. State, 50 Texas Crim. Rep., at page 67, this precise question was adjudicated. ' The following quotation from that opinion will illustrate: “From some of the statements *62 incorporated in the record, the court was laboring under the impression that appellant’s legal rights would be controlled and gauged by his personal testimony, and all of the defensive charges, or those favorable to him, should be in accordance with that idea. This is not the law. See Sowell v. State, 32 Texas Crim. Rep., 482. To lay down such proposition, would be more than dangerous, not only to the defendant, but to the State, and the enforcement of the criminal law. Such conclusion would be based upon the absolute accuracy and truthfulness of the appellant’s testimony to the exclusion of the other evidence. If it should be held that appellant’s testimony makes the only criterion of ’defensive matter, that idea would be predicated upon the truthfulness of his statement. If that were true, the jury would be compelled to take that view of it, and decide the case as defendant might testify. The rule is, that the law should be applied to any and all of the issues suggested by the testimony, and it is immaterial from what source the testimony comes, if it is before the jury the law should be applied to those issues.” If this is not a correct statement of the law clearly and succinctly and pointedly put, it would be difficult to state it. It is unnecessary to pursue this thought further.

¶4 The motion for rehearing is overruled.

¶5 Overruled.

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