Case Name: VALLES v. STATE
Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
Jurisdiction: Texas
Decision Date: 1925-06-03
Citations: 273 S.W. 252
Docket Number: No. 9331
Parties: VALLES v. STATE.
Judges: 
Reporter: South Western Reporter
Volume: 273
Pages: 252–252

Head Matter:
VALLES v. STATE.
(No. 9331.)
(Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.
June 3, 1925.)
Homicide &wkey;>354 — Death penalty for one killing officer held proper.
Death penalty for accused, who shot and killed an officer while discharging duty, merely because officer on former occasion tried to arrest accused for violation of a law, held proper.
Appeal from District Court, El Paso County ; W. D. Howe, Judge.
Arnulfo Valles was convicted of murder, with penalty of death, and he appeals.
Affirmed.
E. B. Elfers, of El Paso, for appellant.
Tom Garrard, State’s Atty., and Grover C. Morris, Asst. State’s Atty., both of Austin, for the State.

Opinion:
HAWKINS, J.
Defendant was given the death penalty for the murder of Enrique Rivera.
The record contains no bills of exception. The killing occurred on the night of the 25th of November, 1923. Deceased had been detailed as a special officer to preserve order at a dance given by some of the Mexican residents of El Paso. Defendant was at the dance which was upstairs over a store building. He and a companion, one Gallarete, had gone down stairs. Two shots were heard. Deceased left the dance hall, and went down stairs, presumably to investigate the matter. He was shot to death as he came down the steps, or just after reaching the sidewalk. A witness who looked out of a second story window saw defendant take a pistol out of the hand of deceased, and saw defendant and another man run away. It was several months after the killing before defendant was apprehended, although officers were seeking him, and tried on several occasions to effect an arrest, but defendant eluded them. It was in evidence that defendant had said he would have to leave El Paso; that he had killed Rivera, and the officers were after him. He told a witness that Gallarete had fired the two shots to attract deceased's attention, and that he (defendant) waited at the bottom of the stairs, and killed deceased as he was coming down. The only motive for the killing appears in a statement made by defendant after his arrest. • The confession was taken under the formalities required by the statute, rendering it admissible in evidence. In it defendant says that some 20 days before he killed Rivera the latter tried to arrest defendant at a time when he had a pistol; that he ran, and Rivera shot at him several times. He admits in this confession that he shot Rivera six times as he was coming down the steps from the dance hall.
Although the verdict carries the death penalty, we find no reason for disturbing it. An officer was killed while in the discharge' of his duty, for no other reason apparently than that on a former occasion he had attempted to arrest the slayer for a violation of the law.
The judgment is affirmed.
¿&wkey;For other cases see same topic and KEY-NUMBER in all Key-Numbered Digests and Indexes