Case ID: tex_10/html/0278-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "WHEELER, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Pierce v. The State.
    The State of Texas v. William C. Pierce, being the description of the ease which usually introduces an entry in the minutes of the .District Court, is sufficient description of the case in a recognizance on appeal to the Supreme Court, although such a description might not be sufficient; if the recognizance did not remain to be enforced in the same court in which it is taken.
    Appeal from Smith. The appellant was convicted upon an indictment for card playing. He appealed to this court, and entered into a recognizance as follows:
    “The State of Texas') In this ease the defendant comes and takes an appeal “ r. Ito tlie Supreme Court, and enters into recognizance as “ William C. Pierce. J follows, to wit: On this day came William C. Pierce, “Hardy Holman, John Warren, and Washington T. Horton, who acknowledged themselves to he indebted to the State of Texas in the sum of two “hundred dollars, to he levied of their respective 'goods and chattels, lands “and tenements, to he void upon condition that William C. Pierce shall make “ his personal appearance at the next term of the District Court of said county, •“and attend from term to term thereafter, then and there to abide whatever “judgment or decree the Supreme Court may render.”
    The attorney general moved to dismiss the appeal “because there is no recognizance in the record applicable to the case.”
    
      Turney and Reaves, for appellant.
    
      Attorney General, for appellee.
   WHEELER, J.

It is insisted by the attorney general that the recognizance ■does not so describe as to identify the case in which it is given. If the recognizance were taken in a case, the record of which remained in a different court ■from that in which, in case of its forfeiture, the judgment upon it is to be taken, it would, perhaps, be necessary (hat it should recite the cause of its •caption. (Commonwealth v. Downey, 9 Mass. R., 520; 16 Id., 446.) But here all the proceedings in the case, except upon the appeal, remain of record in the court in which (.lie recognizance is taken, and in case of forfeiture to be there enforced. The record of the case is there before the court complete, and the court may look back through the record for the purpose of ascertaining the proper connection of the several proceedings taken in the case.

The recognizance states and describes the case accurately by its name and style or title, as is set out in the proceedings of record in tiie District Court; and this, we think, is sufficient to show to this court that it was taken in the ■case, a transcript of the record of which is before us, and also to show to the District Court, in which the record remains, in what case it was taken, and to authorize a judgment of forfeiture in case of the failure of the defendant to appear and abide the judgment which this court may render in the case..

We are of opinion, therefore, that the motion to dismiss do not prevail.

Motion overruled.