Case ID: tex-ct-app_2/html/0162-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Winkler, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Buck Davis v. The State.
    1. Estrays.—An indictment is sufficient which, alleging time and place, charges that the accused did “unlawfully, without complying with the laws regulating estrays, take up and use a certain animal coming within the meaning of an estray, to wit, a certain estray dark-bay mare, of the age of nine years, and the value of $50, of the property of some persons to the grand jury unknown, against,” etc.
    2. Same—Limitation.—An indictment for unlawfully taking up and using an estray is not barred by limitation after the lapse of one year from the taking up of the animal, if the accused continued to use the animal, in violation of law, until within one year before the indictment was found.
    3. Practice in this Court.—When no statement of facts or bill of exception is brought up in the record of a misdemeanor case, this court can only inquire whether the indictment is sufficient, and whether instructions given the jury could.be the law applicable to any legitimate state of proof.
    Appeal from the District Court of Bastrop. Tried below before the Hon. J. P. Richardson.
    
      The indictment was filed December 1, 1874, and laid the time of the offense as January 1st of the same year
    
      P. Claiborne and John Dowell, for the appellant.
    
      George McCormick, Assistant Attorney General, for the State.
   Winkler, J.

In the absence of a statement of facts there is nothing in the record which we are authorized to inquire into further than as to the sufficiency of the indictment, and whether the charge was a proper one under any state of the evidence admissible under the indictment.

No substantial objection is perceived, or has been pointed out, to the indictment. It is deemed sufficient to describe the offense charged as required by the statute creating the offense.

The offense of which the appellant is accused must be regarded in the nature of theft, and that, if he continued to use the estray in violation of law, he continued to be liable to the law for using it in violation of law.

On the face of the indictment the offense does not appear to have been barred at the time the indictment was found. We find no error in the charge of the court as given to the jury, nor in refusing the instructions asked by the defendant. In the absence of any bill of exceptions or statement of facts, we are not required to examine further into the case, it being a misdemeanor.

The judgment of the court below is affirmed.

Affirmed.