Case ID: sw2d_8/html/0165-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "MORROW, P. J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

KNOX v. STATE.
    (No. 11900.)
    Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.
    June 20, 1928.
    Criminal law <§=>721(3) — State counsel’s argument regarding defendant’s failure to testify, while criticizing defendant’s effort to relate facts in arguing his own case, held improper (Code Cr. Proc. 1925, art. 710).
    Where defendant, in arguing his own case, was stopped by court on objection that he was stating facts not in evidence, state’s counsel’s statement in argument, while criticizing defendant’s effort to relate facts, that defendant did not have nerve to take oath as witness, held to be transgression of Code Or. Proc. 1925, art. 710, forbidding comment on failure of accused to testify.
    Appeal from Hall County Court; A. C. I-Ioffman, Judge.
    Clyde Knox was convicted of drunkenness in a public place, and he appeals.
    Reversed and remanded.
    Fitzgerald & Grundy, of Memphis, for appellant.
    A. A. Dawson, State’s Atty., of Austin, for the State.
   MORROW, P. J.

The offense is drunkenness in a public place; punishment fixed at a fine of $50.

The appellant was not represented by counsel upon the trial. In arguing his ease, he attempted to narrate the facts. He was stopped by the court upon objection by state’s counsel that he was stating facts not in evidence. In his argument, counsel for the state, criticizing the effort of the appellant to relate the facts, stated to the jury that “the defendant did not have the nerve to take the oath as a witness before this jury and tell you anything.” The court, having sustained the objection of state’s counsel, thereby prevented the appellant from relating his version of the facts, and excluded from the consideration of the jury such facts as he had related. We think the argument of state’s counsel containing the statement quoted is deemed a transgression of the statute forbidding comment upon the failure of the accused to testify. See article 710, C. C. P. 1925.

The judgment is reversed, and the cause remanded.