Case ID: sw_162/html/0872-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "HARPER, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

BOYETTE v. STATE.
    (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.
    Dec. 17, 1913.
    Rehearing Denied Jan. 21, 1914.)
    1. Witnesses (§ 349*) — Impeachment.
    Questions asked a witness on cross-examination, in a prosecution for unlawfully carry.ing a pistol, if the witness had not some 20 or 30 years ago been engaged in selling intoxicants, and had not also run a tenpin alley, were properly excluded, on the ground that such acts were too remote to affect the witness’s credit.
    [Ed. Note. — For other cases, see Witnesses, Cent. Dig. §§ 1135-1139; Dec. Dig. § 349.*]
    2. Criminal Law (§ 814*) — Prosecution — Construction — Applicability — Evidence.
    Where accused did not claim, in a prosecution for unlawfully carrying a pistol, that he was on his own premises at the time, and even denied having a pistol, it was not error to refuse a request to charge that accused had a right to carry a pistol on his own premises.
    [Ed. Note. — For other cases, see Criminal Law, Cent. .Dig. §§ 1821, 1833, 1839, 1860, 1865, 1883, 1890, 1924, 1979-1985, 1987; Dec. Dig. § 814. *]
    Appeal from Smith County Court; Jesse F. Odom, Judge.
    Frank Boyette was convicted of unlawfully carrying a pistol, and appeals.
    Webster Jarvis, of Tyler, for appellant. C. E. Lane, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
   HARPER, J.

Appellant was convicted of unlawfully carrying a pistol, and his punishment assessed at a fine of $100.

When the case was called for trial, appellant filed his second application for a continuance. As the application, in several respects, failed to meet the requirements of articles 60S and 609 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the court committed no error in overruling the application.

While the prosecuting witness Jno. D. Scott was testifying, on cross-examination, appellant desired to elicit from him that some 20 or 30 years ago he had engaged in the sale of intoxicating liquors, and had also run a tenpin alley. As these acts of themselves do not constitute a crime, the court did not err in sustaining the objection to said testimony, on the ground that such acts are “too remote to affect the credit of the witness.”

Appellant requested the court to instruct the jury that he had a right to carry a pistol on his own premises. If the testimony called for such charge, of course it should have been given. Appellant does not in his testimony claim to have been on his own premises, and emphatically denies having any pistol on the occasion in question. The issue as made by appellant’s testimony, that it was a bicycle pump which state’s witnesses mistook for a pistol, was submitted by the court to the jury, and they find adversely to this contention. Ben Watts and Jno. D. Scott swear positively that appellant had a pistol and drew it on them, and told them, if they came a step further, he would shoot them. This transaction, if it did take place, did not take place on appellant’s premises, and, if the state’s testimony is true, appellant came off the streets of Tyler with a pistol on his person.

The judgment is affirmed.