Case Name: Curtis Craig v. The State
Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
Jurisdiction: Texas
Decision Date: 1911-04-05
Citations: 62 Tex. Crim. 299
Docket Number: No. 1102
Parties: Curtis Craig v. The State.
Judges: 
Reporter: Texas Criminal Reports
Volume: 62
Pages: 299–301

Head Matter:
Curtis Craig v. The State.
No. 1102.
Decided April 5, 1911.
Rehearing Denied May 10, 1911.
1. —local Option—Recognizance—Dismissal—Reinstatement.
Where the appeal is dismissed for want of a sufficient recognizance, and thereafter a sufficient recognizance was presented and filed in the Appellate Court, the case was reinstated.
2. —Same—Verdict—Informalities—Words and Phrases.
■Where, upon trial of a violation of the local option law, the verdict found defendant guilty as charged in the indictment, assessing his punishment at a fine of $25 and twenty days confinement in the county jail, the fact that he was tried on an information and that the verdict omitted the word “confinement” would not vitiate the verdict, as it was sufficiently intelligible to form the basis of the judgment.
3. —Same—Sufficiency of the Evidence—Identity.
Where, upon trial of a violation of the local option law, the defendant was sufficiently identified, and the sale of the whisky established by the evidence, the conviction will not be disturbed.
Appeal from the County Court of Sabine. Tried below before the Hon. J. H. McGown.
Appeal from a conviction of a violation of the local option law; penalty, a fine of $25 and twenty days confinement in the county jail.
The opinion states the case.
Goodrich & Lewis, for appellant.
C. E. Lane, Assistant Attorney-General, for the State.

Opinion:
DAVIDSON, Presiding Judge.
On motion of the Assistant-Attorney General this case must be dismissed, because the recognizance is not in the form required by our statute." The recognizance copied into the record is fatally defective in several respects. It is in the nature of a bond, and not in the form of a recognizance, and recites that appellant stands charged with the offense of "unlawfully selling intoxicating liquors as is charged in the information duly presented and pending against him in the above entitled and numbered cause shall well and truly make his personal appearance before the County Court of Sabine County, Texas, before the next regular term of this court, to be holden within and for the county of Sabine, at the courthouse in Hemphill, on the 3d Monday in February, A. D. 1911, and then and there to remain from term to term and from day to day to abide the action of the Court of Criminal Appeals."
It will be noticed that this does not follow the language of the statute. It does not set out that appellant was convicted of a misdemeanor, nor does it set out the punishment assessed against him. The statute has prescribed the form for recognizance, and a recognizance not in accord with that form has been held at all times to be insufficient. This appeal bond or recognizance, or whatever it may be termed, is signed by the principal and sureties. So it will be observed by a comparison of the instrument with the statutory form that it does not comply with the terms of the law.
The motion is well taken, and the appeal is dismissed.
Dismissed.