Case ID: tex-ct-app_2/html/0303-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Ector, P. J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

James T. Trimble v. The State.
    1. Final Judgment.—In n murder case the jury found the accused guilty of murder in the first degree, and assessed his punishment at death; and thereupon the court below rendered judgment as follows: “It is considered by the court that the defendant is guilty as found by the jury, and that he be remanded to the county jail to await the sentence of the law.” Held, on motion to dismiss, not to be a final judgment, and motion sustained.
    
      2. Same.—A final judgment would have further adjudged that the defendant be condemned to be hanged by the neck until he is dead.
    Appeal from the District Court of Falls. Tried below Before the Hon. X. B. Saunders.
    The judment entry is condensed in the head-note. After reciting the verdict, its full text was as follows : ‘ ‘ Therefore it is considered by the court that the defendant, James T. Trimble, is guilty as found by the jury. Therefore it is ordered, adjudged, and decreed by the court that the said defendant, James T. Trimble, be remanded to the common jail in Falls county, by the sheriff, and there be safely and closely confined in said jail, there to await the final sentence of the law.”
    
      
      J. L. Scott, and Herring, Anderson & Kelley, for appellant.
    
      George McCormick, Assistant Attorney General,
    moves to dismiss the appeal because there is no final judgment.
   Ector, P. J.

The motion of the assistant attorney general, to dismiss the appeal in this case for the want of a final judgment of conviction, must be granted. What was-evidently intended as an entry of such judgment has time and again been held not sufficient to give this court jurisdiction on appeal.

After approving the verdict of the jury and adjudging-the defendant guilty of murder of. the first degree, as found, by the verdict of the jury, it should further be adjudged that defendant be condemned to be hanged by the neck until he is dead. The form of a final judgment in the case of Shultz v. The State, 13 Texas, 403, has been approved by the supreme court. In that case, as in this, the jury found the defendant guilty of murder in the first degree, and assessed his punishment at death.

There being no entry of a final judgment of conviction,, the appeal is dismissed.

Appeal dismissed.