Case Name: Lonnie Reeves v. The State
Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
Jurisdiction: Texas
Decision Date: 1923-06-20
Citations: 95 Tex. Crim. 28
Docket Number: No. 7193
Parties: Lonnie Reeves v. The State.
Judges: 
Reporter: Texas Criminal Reports
Volume: 95
Pages: 28–35

Head Matter:
Lonnie Reeves v. The State.
No. 7193.
Decided June 20, 1923.
1. — Murder—Requested Charges — Practice on Appeal.
Where, upon trial of murder, it appear upon appeal from a conviction thereof, that no exception was reserved to the failure of the court or its refusal to give requested charges, and moreover the same principles were included in the general charge, there was no reversible error.
2. —Same—Sufficiency of the Evidence.
Where it appeared from the record on appeal that appellant received a fair trial, and the evidence sustained the conviction under a proper charge of the court, the judgment of a life sentence must be affirmed.
3. —Same—Bills of Exception — Rule Stated.
It appears well settled that exceptions to evidence admitted over objection of defendant may be embraced in the statement of facts, and such exceptions will be considered under certain limitations and restrictions.
1. — Same—Evidence—Opinion of Witness — Harmless Error.
Where a witness’s opinion was objected to on the ground that the witness had not shown himself to be an expert nor qualified to give such an opinion, and that he was not a practicing physician, and this was shown to be true, his opinion should not have been admitted. However, where this testimony was supplied without objection from another source, the same is harmless error.
5. —Same—Bill of Exceptions — Rule Stated.
Where there is nothing in the bill of exceptions which enables this court to pass upon the correctness or otherwise of the objections urged, it does not feel bound to examine the entire statement of facts whether they after-wards developed.
6. —Same—Evidence—Moral Turpitude — Judgment of Conviction.
Where the inquiry was not for the purpose of disqualifying the witness, but only as affecting the credibility it is not necessary to produce the judgment of conviction that the witness had been convicted of robbery; nor was the conviction too remote after three years. Following Vick v. State, 71 Texas Crim. Rep., 50, and other cases.
7. —Same—Evidence—Impeaching Witness.
Where defendant complamed that he was not permitted to ask a State witness if he had not been indicted in seven cases in 1910, charging him with passing forged checks, and if the indictments were not dismissed in 1912, but the record showed that the proof of such indictments went into the record, there is no reversible error.
Appeal from the Criminal Court of Dallas. Tried below before the Honorable Robt. B. Seay.
Appeal from a conviction of murder; penalty, ninety-nine years imprisonment in the penitentiary.
The opinion states the case.
Ballowe & King, for appellant.
— On question of bills of exception in record, Cox v. State, 132 S. W. Rep., 125; Bailey v. State, 97 id., 694.
W. A. Keeling, Attorney General, and C. L. Stone, Assistant Attorney General, for the State.

Opinion:
HAWKINS, Judge.
— Appéllant was convicted for the murder of Turner Gamble and his punishment assessed at confinement in the penitentiary for ninety-nine years.
Appellant lived on Fairmount Street in the city of Dallas. His brother, Walter Reeves, lived on the same street near appellant. Diagonally across the street lived Bessie Brown, her husband Will Brown, and her brother Dick Gamble. The deceased, Turner Gamble, did not live with them but on the afternoon of the homicide was visiting at their house. We conclude from the testimony that appellant had no acquaintance whatever with deceased. The relations between the two Reeves boys, the Browns and Dick Gamble appeared to have been friendly up to a few days prior to the killing. We gather from the record that about this time there was some talk in the neighborhood that appellant was manufacturing and selling intoxicating liquor at his house, and the officers made some investigation. Appellant seems to have attributed the inquiry of the officers and the rumors to Dick Gamble. The evidence of the State is to the effect that on the afternoon the killing occurred appellant called Dick Gamble out of his sister's residence to talk with him; that they went about half a block away where they were seen to be engaged in conversation; that in a few minutes Dick Gamble returned to his sister's house in an excited condition, stating that appellant had made an assault upon him and had tried to strike him with a picket which he had pulled off the fence, and made inquiry -if anyone in the house had a pistol, and was advised there was no pistol on the premises. Within fifteen or twenty minutes thereafter appellant and his brother, Walter Reeves, were seen crossing the street in a run going towards the Brown house. They each had pistols in their hands, and one witness states that she heard Walter Reeves, who was behind appellant, say to him, "Hide your pistol;" that appellant replied, "G — d damn them, I am going to kill every G — d damn one of them." They reached the Brown house and broke in the back door which was bolted. The occupants of the house testify that when they broke in the back door appellant said, "Come out of there you' s — s of b — es, I am going to kill every G — d damn one of you;" that Will Brown, Bessie Brown, Dick Gamble, Turner Gamble and another negro by the name of Shelton, who was present at the time got hold of the Reeves boys and undertook to disarm them; that during the scuffle furniture was overturned, dishes broken and considerable noise and confusion occurred; that finally appellant broke loose from those who were trying to disarm him, with the exception of Turner Gamble who was an old negro seventy years1 of age; that lie still had hold of appellant and appellant hold of him; that as appellant backed out of the door through which' he had entered, that deceased was saying to him, "Don't do that, don't do that, what is the matter with you boys?"; that appellant pulled him out of the back door, saying " i'ou old gray headed s— of a b — , I will diag you out in the yard and kill you;" that they scuffled out into the yard against a box and that during the struggle the pistol in the hands of appellant was discharged several tipies; that Walter Reeves had gotten away from the parties who had been trying to disarm him, ran ont of the front door and around to where appellant and Turner Gamble were, and that Walter Reeves also shot deceased. During the fight appellant received a pistol shot wound in the leg just above the knee. Deceased had five pistol wounds in various parts of his body and died immediately after walking back into the house.
. Appellant's evidence and that of his witnesses was to the effect that on Friday night before the killing Sunday afternoon, Dick Gamble had been at appellant's house and had caused a disturbance in a quarrel with a negro named Clem; that appellant had requested him not to have any trouble there and had sent a negro woman to notify Bessie Brown, Dick's sister, that he was there and for her to come after him; that Will Brown had come and taken Dick Gamble away; that as they were leaving one of the two was heard to say, "G — d damn them, don't go over there to that nigger, Lonnie Reeves' house and start anything, We'll get the s— of á b— over at our house and we'll do business with him there;" that appellant and his brother, Walter Reeves, wrere passing the Brown house the Sunday .afternoon'when Bessie Brown called appellant to come into the house, that she wanted to talk to him, and that he and Walter Reeves upon that invitation went in, entering at the front door; that immediately upon getting into the house Dick Gamble said, "There is that s— of a b— now, ' ' and that immediately the parties in the house, including deceased, made an attack upon both appellant and his brother; that several shois Avere fired in the house, and that appellant scuffled out of the back door, deceased holding him at the time and striking him about the head with an iron bar or stick of wood; that as they were scuffling out in the yard some one from the inside of the house fired tAvo shots at appellant, Avhich shots apparently struck deceased; that he turned appellant loose, who immediately ran away. Will BrovA'n and Dick Gamble each denied that either of them used any such language as was attributed to them at the time they left appellant's house on Friday night. Will Brown testifies that he went to appellant's house after Dick Gamble on such occasion at the request of his wife but that he knew of no trouble which had occurred there, and that there was no indication of any trouble at the time he reached appellant's place. Search Avas made by theooffeers and other parties after the homicide and no bullet marks of any kind Avere found any where on the inside of the house. The defense testimony was to the effect that neither appellant nor his brother had pistols at the time they went into the Brown house, but that the pistols were in the possession of the inmates thereof. The officers reached the scene of the homicide in a few minutes after it occurred and found no pistols in or about the house.
"We have thought it unnecessary to detail the evidence of the various witnesses separately but have undertaken to state substantially a summary of all of it both from the standpoint of the State and appellant.
No bills of exception appear in the record to the rejection _or admission of any testimony. A number of special charges were requested two of which were given; those refused bear no notation that an exception was reserved to the failure to give them, and no bills- of exception appear bringing forward such refusal for review. Where appropriate the principles were included in the general charge. The sole exception incorporates the objections filed to the court's charge. It will be observed from the fact developed upon the trial that many issues were raised and the court's charge seems to have covered all of them. The main charge and the .two special charges given by request appear to have guarded appellant's rights upon every issue in the case. The charge embraced not only murder but the law of manslaughter and self-defense, covering in an admirable way the some what confused issues growing out of the evidence. We have been unable to discover any merit in the exceptions to the charge, although we have examined the same cárefully in view of the heavy penalty inflicted.
The State's case, if its evidence is to be believed, reveals a condition of affairs in which appellant seems to have directed his malice not only at Dick Gamble but at all the inmates of the house; that he and his brother were actnig together, had armed themselves and had gone there with the express purpose of making a deadly assault upon the inmates, and that in carrying this purpose out Turner Gamble met his death. We have been unable to reach any other conclusion than that appellant received a fair trial, with a charge not subject to the criticisms and objections lodged against it, and that the penalty inflicted is a merited one.
Finding no error in the record, the judgment is affirmed.
Affirmed.