Case ID: tex-crim_80/html/0511-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "PRENDERGAST, Judge.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Steve Terry v. The State.
    No. 4342.
    Decided January 31, 1917.
    Assault to Murder—Sufficiency of the Evidence—Self-defense.
    Where, upon trial of assault with intent to murder, the defendant pleaded self-defense, but the evidence was sufficient to sustain the conviction under a proper charge of the court, there was no reversible error.
    Appeal from the District Court of Cass. Tried below before the Hon. H. F. O’Neal.
    Appeal from a conviction of assault with intent to murder; penalty, two years imprisonment in the penitentiary.
    The testimony of the prosecuting witness and party injured was, in substance, that the difficulty occurred at a dance and originated from a wordy altercation between him and the defendant, the party injured insisting that the defendant must dance with the ladies and not with the gentlemen, and that just before the difficulty and during the same, the injured party told the defendant to dance with a girl if he wanted to dance, to which the defendant replied he would dance with whom he damned pleased; that defendant had his knife in his hand up his coat sleeve and kept coming upon the witness, who backed across the room from him, and after witness got across the room next to the wall, defendant rubbed his fist in his face, when the witness hit him and knocked him back, but when the witness, the injured party, knocked defendant back out of the way, defendant’s brother grabbed witness around the neck and reached around with his knife and cut witness right across the hip, when witness grabbed his arm and they fell down to the floor; that then the defendant, as the parties got up, cut the witness across the face; that the witness then got loose, etc.
    It was also shown by the State’s testimony that a physician examined the injured party and found a number of wounds on him, some on the hip, others on the arm, and some in the face, some of which wounds were serious, and were evidently made with a knife, etc.
    
      Defendant testified that the injured party had hit him and knocked him down, and that he afterwards acted in self-defense.
    The opinion states the case.
    ISTo brief on file for appellant.
    
      E. B. Hendricks Assistant Attorney General, for the State.
   PRENDERGAST, Judge.

Appellant was convicted of an assault with intent to murder and his punishment assessed at the lowest prescribed by law.

The sole question in the case is whether or not the evidence was sufficient to sustain the conviction. We have carefully read and considered the whole testimony. The State’s side, we think, was clearly sufficient to show appellant guilty. We see no necessity of now reciting the testimony. Appellant’s defense was self-defense, which was submitted to the jury in a proper charge, to which there was no complaint, and the jury found against him.

The judgment will be affirmed.

Affirmed.

MORROW, Judge, absent.