Case ID: sw_217/html/0949-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "-LATTIMORE, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

(86 Tex. Cr. R. 464)
    SAUNDERS et al. v. STATE.
    (No. 5602.)
    (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.
    Jan. 14, 1920.)
    1. Bail <©=393 — Service or scire vacias Ot-ón ALL SURETIES NECESSARY BEFORE FINAL JUDGMENT ON DEFAULT AGAINST THEM.
    A judgment against sureties on a bail bond, rendered on default, cannot be sustained, where the scire facias upon which the final judgment was rendered was served only upon one of them, in view of Vernon’s Ann. Code Cr. Proc. 1916, art. 492.
    2. Bail <@=»93 — Return of service of scire FACIAS ON SURETIES MUST SHOW BLACE OF SERVICE.
    A judgment against sureties on a bail bond, rendered on default, cannot be sustained where the return 'on the scire facias was “came to hand the 20th day of January, 1919, at - o’clock -m, and executed March 29, 1919, by delivering to Dan Skeans in person a true copy of this writ. [Signed] Tom Eord, Sheriff Cooke County, Texas” — such return bring insufficient in view of Vernon’s Ann. Code Cr. Proc. 1916, art. 492, requiring service of a scire facias upon sureties in same manner as citations in civil actions..
    Appeal from District Court, Cooke County; C. R. Pearman, Judge.
    Proceedings by the State against Owen Saunders and others, as sureties on the bail bond of one H. B. Porter. Erom a final judgment against the sureties on the bail bond, they appeal.
    Reversed and remanded for proper service and new trial.
    See, also, 217 S. W. 148.
    
      J. T. Adams, of Gainesville, for appellants.
    Alvin M. Owsley, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
   -LATTIMORE, J.

Plaintiffs in error in this ease bring before us the action of the district court of Cooke county, Tex., in rendering final judgment against them as the sureties upon the bail bond of one H. B. Porter.

Plaintiffs in error were sureties upon the bond of said Porter, and upon his failure to appear judgment nisi was entered, and scire facias ordered for these plaintiffs. The officer’s return upon said scire facias, and upon which the judgment final seems to have been rendered, is insufficient. Said return is as follows:

.“Came to hand the 20th day of January, 1919, at - o’clock -m, and executed March 29, 1919, by delivering to Dan Skeans in person a true copy of this writ.”
“[Signed] Tom Ford,
“Sheriff Cooke County, Texas.”

It is apparent from an inspection of this return that the plaintiffs in error, who were companion sureties of Mr. Skeans, do not appear therefrom to have been served. Our statute requires the service of a scire facias upon the sureties in the same manner as is required for service of citations in civil actions, and it has been held by this court that a judgment by default will not be sustained unless the return shows service, on each of the defendants in person, of a true copy of the writ, giving the date and place of service. Harryman v. State, 57 Tex. Cr. R. 204, 122 S. W. 398; article 492, Vernon’s C. C. P.

The judgment of the trial court against plaintiffs • in error, George A. Beck, Dan Skeans, and Owen Saunders, is reversed and remanded for proper service, and a new trial. 
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