Case Name: Dock Baines v. The State
Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
Jurisdiction: Texas
Decision Date: 1901-02-21
Citations: 42 Tex. Crim. 510
Docket Number: No. 2252
Parties: Dock Baines v. The State.
Judges: 
Reporter: Texas Criminal Reports
Volume: 42
Pages: 510–517

Head Matter:
Dock Baines v. The State.
No. 2252.
Decided. February 21, 1901.
1. Alibi—Continuance—New Trial.
On a trial for assault with intent to murder, where the defense was alibi, and the court had overruled defendant’s application for continuance for a witness by whom he expected to prove the alibi, and defendant, after conviction, made a motion for new trial based upon the error of the court in thus overruling and in support of this motion filed the affidavit of the proposed witness which directly and pertinently met the State’s case and established the alibi for defendant. Held, that notwithstanding the State’s case, although based upon circumstantial evidence, was exceedingly strong on the question of defendant’s identity, the court erred in overruling the motion for new trial.
2. Same—Practice on Appeal.
Where the affidavit of an absent witness has been produced on the motion for a new trial showing absolutely that he would testify to the facts set up in an application for continuance (said facts being material, and diligence sufficient), the court on appeal will not assume the prerogative of saying that the testimony was not probably true, and thus usurp the functions of the jury. Brooks, J., dissenting.
Appeal from the District Court of Erath. Tried below before Hon. J. S. Steaughan.
Appeal from a conviction of assault with intent to murder; penalty, six ji-ears imprisonment in the penitentiary.
The indictment charged appellant with assault with intent to murder Minnie Freeman, on the 9th of August, 1900.
Minnie Freeman was defendant’s wife’s sixteen-year-old sister. From her testimony as a witness in the case, defendant seems to have fallen in love with her. He made frequent demonstrations of his love and proposed to leave his wife and children and run off with her. She repelled all his advances, and he became satisfied that she loved and perhaps was engaged to a young man who was her neighbor. This was his motive for attempting to take her life, according to the State’s theory. She had no other enemy, and no other person was shown to have a motive to injure her. Defendant lived several miles from where Miss Freeman lived. She was shot in the yard to her father’s house between the hours of 8 and 9 o’clock on the night of August 9th. She and her mother had gone into the yard in search of a piece of plank which they needed in making a shelf to a cupboard in the house. Minnie was carrying a lighted glass lamp when she was shot, and the lamp was shattered by the shot. The weapon used by the party doing the shooting was a shotgun. The shot penetrated both of her legs above the knees. The doctor who attended her extracted sixteen of the twenty-nine shot from her legs. There were three sizes of shot, to wit, numbers 6, 4, and 2, B. B. shot.
L. H. Bramlett, a witness, testified that on the 8th of August he loaned defendant his muzzle-loading shotgun, defendant saying he wanted it to kill wolves with. At the same time he loaned defendant ammunition to load the gun with, consisting of powder, caps, and three sizes of shot, being numbers 6, 4, and 2. When defendant returned the gun, on the morning of the 10th of August, it had recently been discharged. Defendant told witness that some one had shot Miss Freeman last night. The officers and other parties found pieces of the newspaper which had been used as wadding in loading the gun near the place where the would-be assassin had fired his gun, from the outside of the yard fence. They also found shoe tracks corresponding with defendant’s shoes. The pieces of newspaper were parts of a paper published in Chicago, called the “Barn’s Horn,” and the copy from which they were taken was of date June 16, 1900. Miss Freeman was getting this paper at the time she was shot, defendant having paid the subscrip tion for it for her for one year. After she had read each number of the paper, as it arrived, she testified that defendant or his wife would come to her house and get the paper and take it home with them. The morning after the shooting defendant’s house was searched by Joe Gordan, the constable, and other parties, and he testified that they found a piece of paper lying in the floor near a chair which had been torn, and that they compared it with some of the gun wadding found at the place of shooting and the pieces fit each other exactly; and, by putting them together, you could read right across where the paper was torn as if it never had been torn. The torn paper found in defendant’s house was the “Ram’s Horn.” The shots extracted from Miss Freeman’s person and the pieces of gun wadding and a copy of the “Ram’s Horn” were all introduced and shown to the jury. There were other circumstances proven of an inculpatory character, but the foregoing is, in brief, a concise summary of the main features of the evidence for the State.
The defense was alibi. Before the trial upon the merits, defendant’s application for continuance, for the testimony of one O. R. McCoy, an absent witness, was overruled. This ruling of the court was again brought forward and made one of the grounds of defendant’s motion for new trial. The application for continuance states: “The defendant expects to prove by the witness O. R. McCoy that he, the witness, was at defendant’s house in Hood County, Texas, on the evening of August 9, 1900 [the evening or night Miss Freeman was shot], from 6 o’clock in the evening until 9 o’clock in the night of said day, and that defendant was at home, three and one-half miles from the place where Miss Freeman was shot, from the hour of 6 o’clock p. m. until 9 o’clock p. m. on the said evening, and that witness left defendant at his home at 9 o’clock on said night.” The affidavit of the said absent witness O. R. McCoy was attached to defendant’s motion for new trial, and in it he stated: “That affiant was to Dock Baines’ house where Baines lived on the evening of the 9th of August, 1900, from about the hour of 5 o’clock on said evening until the hour of 9 o’clock in said night; and that Dock Baines was at his, Baines’, home all the time between the said hours of 5 o’clock p. m. and 9 o’clock p. m. of said 9th day of August, 1900.”
Kearby & Kearby and Daniel & Keith, for appellant.
D. E. Simmons, Acting Assistant Attorney-General, for the State.

Opinion:
HENDERSON, Judge.
Appellant was convicted of an assault with mtent to murder, and his punishment assessed at six years confinement in the penitentiary.
Appellant made a motion for continuance on account of the absence of O. R. McCoy and Jim White. The diligence used to procure the witness McCoy was sufficient. We do not regard the diligence as to White sufficient, nor was his testimony material. However, as shown by the application for continuance, the testimony of McCoy was material; that is, the State's case depended alone on circumstantial evidence. Appellant's defense was an alibi. He lived some three or four miles from the place where the shooting occurred. Both of the State's witnesses who speak as to time place this at night, between 8 and. 9 o'clock. Minnie Freeman (prosecutrix) states: "I was shot on the night of the 9th of August, 1900, at my father's house, and in the yard that surrounds the house." Mrs. J. 0. Freeman states: "I was at home the night that Minnie was shot. It happened about 8 o'clock." These were the only two witnesses present at the time of the shooting, and neither of them identifies the defendant as the party. The application for continuance alleged "that the absent witness, McCoy, would testify that he was at defendant's house, in Hood County, Texas, on the evening of August 9, 1900 (the evening or night that Minnie Freeman was shot), from 6 o'clock in the evening until 9 o'clock in the night of said day, and that defendant was at home, three and one-half miles from the place where Miss Minnie Freeman was shot, from the hour of 6 o'clock p. m. until 9 o'clock p. m. of said evening, and that witness left defendant at his home at 9 o'clock on said night." This application was overruled. In connection with the motion for new trial on the ground of erroneously overruling the application for continuance, appellant appended the affidavit of this witness, McCoy, who swore "that he was a citizen of Parker County on the 20th of October, 1900, and before that time; that he was acquainted with Dock Baines, who resided in Hood County, Texas; that affiant was at Dock Baines' house, where Baines lived, on the evening of 'the 9th of August, 1900, from about the hour of 5 o'clock of said evening until the hour of' 9 o'clock in said night, and that Dock Baines was at his (Baines') home all the time between the hours of 5 o'clock p. m. and 9 o'clock p. m. of said 9th day of August, 1900." In that connection is also appended the affidavit of Mrs. Baines, stating that there were some business matters between her husband and said McCoy, and that, of her knowledge, McCoy had visited her husband during the preceding March in relation to said business matters. The statement of facts shows, also, that on the night of the shooting Mrs. Baines, the wife of appellant, was absent from home. It will be seen from this statement that the testimony of McCoy as to the alibi directly and pertinently meets the State's ease. The statement contained in the absent witness' affidavit is unequivocal, and covers the entire space of time fixed by the State in the commission of the offense, and, if McCoy's affidavit is untrue, he is undeniably guilty of perjury. It is insisted, however, that the State's case, though depending on circumstantial evidence, is exceedingly strong on the question of identity, and that in the face of this testimony the evidence of alibi is not probably true, and that it is competent and proper for this court to so declare ; and a number of cases have been cited in which we have so held. Where an affidavit of the absent witness has been produced on motion for new trial, showing absolutely that he would testify to the facts set up in the application, we do not think any case can be found where we have assumed the. prerogative of saying that the testimony was not probably true. To so hold, it seems to us, would be not only to usurp the functions of the jury, but to announce in advance that the absent witness had committed perjury. In our opinion, on the showing made, the judge should have granted the motion for new trial. Hull v. State (Texas Crim. App.), 47 S. W. Rep., 473.
We have examined the other errors assigned, but do not believe that any of them are well taken. On account of the action of the court in overruling the motion for continuance, and then refusing to grant a new trial on that ground, the judgment is reversed and the cause remanded.
Reversed and remanded.