Case Name: TYRONE v. STATE
Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
Jurisdiction: Texas
Decision Date: 1915-06-23
Citations: 180 S.W. 125
Docket Number: No. 3567
Parties: TYRONE v. STATE.
Judges: 
Reporter: South Western Reporter
Volume: 180
Pages: 125–131

Head Matter:
TYRONE v. STATE.
(No. 3567.)
(Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.
June 23, 1915.
Rehearing Denied Oct. 13, 1915.
Dissenting Opinion, Nov. 17, 1915.)
1. Criminal Law <&wkey;660 — Conduct os’ Judge — Remarks to Panel.
Any objection to remarks by the court to the regular jury panel cannot be sustained, where accused made no objections to the jurors drawn from such panel, and it did not appear that when such jurors were accepted he had exhausted his peremptory challenges.
[Ed. Note. — For other cases, see Criminal Law, Cent. Dig. §§ 1536, 1537; Dee. Dig. <&wkey;> 600.]
2. Criminal Law <&wkey;706 — Examination — Error.
Accused cannot complain that the district attorney used a memorandum in examining witnesses, where there was nothing to show that such memorandum was notes of the testimony given at the preliminary examination, or before the grand jury, and the district attorney declared that it was merely a memorandum to refresh his memory.
[Ed. Note. — Por other cases, see Criminal Law, Cent. Dig. § 1661; Dec. Dig. &wkey;>706.]
3 Criminal Law <&wkey;655 — Triai>-Remakks of Court.
Where accused objected to the district attorney using a memorandum in examining a witness, and there was nothing to show that it was notes of testimony taken at the examining trial or before the grand jury, the court may properly remark that he did not desire more time wasted on frivolous controversies.
[Ed. Note. — Por other cases, see Criminal Law, Cent. Dig. §§ 1520-1523, 1527, 1535; Dec. Dig. &wkey;>655.]
4. Witnesses &wkey;>330 — Cross-Examination— Scope.
Where accused’s wife took the stand and testified that deceased had sexual intercourse with her while she was under a hypnotic influence. she may be cross-cxamined as to whether hex- husband did not examine her as to such ti-ansaction.
[Ed. Note. — For other cases, see Witnesses, Cent. Dig. §§ 1106-1108; Dec. Dig. &wkey;330.]
5. Criminal Law <&wkey;1120 — Appeal—HARMLESS ERROR.
Where the record did not disclose the answer, the impropriety of a question on cross-examination cannot be urged on appeal.
[Ed. Note. — For other cases, see Criminal Law, Cent. Dig. §§ 2931-2937; Dec. Dig. &wkey; 1120.]
6. Criminal Law <&wkey;730 — Trial—Argument of Prosecutor.
Where the district attorney in his argument quoted from notes of the testimony of witnesses, and the court charged the jury that they should disregard any argument not based on the evidence, and, though refusing to again interrupt the district attorney gave a requested cbai-ge that statements made in argument were not evidence, accused cannot complain of the district attorney’s use of his memorandum.
[Ed. Note. — For other cases, see Criminal Law, Cent. Dig. § 1693; Dec. Dig. @^730.]
7. Criminal Law <&wkey;8G5 — Trial — Instructions.
In a prosecution for felony, it was not error for the court to inform the jury, after they had been deliberating, that it would be necessary for him to go to his home, and to urge them to continue their deliberations and arrive at a verdict.
[Ed. Note. — For other cases, see Criminal Law, Cent. Dig. § 2069; Dec. Dig. <^^865.]
8. Criminal Law <&wkey;649 — Trial—Adjournment.
For the judge to leave court and visit his home when he returned the next day does not ipso facto woi-k an adjournment.
[Ed. Note. — For other cases, see Criminal Law, Cent. Dig. §§ 1512-1516; Dec. Dig. &wkey; 649.]
9. Criminal Law <&wkey;939 — New Trial — Newly Discovered Evidence.
In a prosecution for manslaughter, where accused’s wife claimed that deceased hypnotized and then had intercourse with her, newly discovered testimony in rebuttal of the state’s medical experts, that such acts could not have been consummated during hypnosis, is no ground for new trial, for accused should have anticipated such contention and prepared to meet it with medical experts and standard medical works.
[Ed. Note. — For other cases, see Ci'iminal Law, Cent. Dig. §§ 2318-2323; Dec. Dig. <&wkey;> 939.]
Davidson, X, dissenting.
Appeal from District Court, Eastland. County; Thomas L. Blanton, Judge.
W. I. Tyrone was convicted of manslaughter, and he appeals.
Affirmed.
The district court gave to the panel of jurors for the week the following verbal instructions:
“In the trial of every case in the district court it is frequently necessary during the trial for the court to retire the jury during argument for counsel on the admissibility of testimony. That is a matter which is controlled by law, and when you are forced to retire every few minutes, if that should be the case, you must not become nettled at the attorneys who make the objections, or any one else, as the law demands it, and you are as much responsible for it as any one else, so you will have to take it as a matter of course. I mention this because sometimes jurors become nettled at attorneys for making objections which force jurors to retire. It is the duty of a good attorney to make an objection, whenever ho thinks it is to the interest of his client, and the law requires that the court should retire you, and so it is a matter over which none of us have any control. We just have to take it as a matter of course.
“You are asked on your voir dire frequently whether you know anything about a given case, and at the time being you may not remember that you do know anything about it, and you so answer, and ax-e taken on the jury. Later on the evidence of some witness may remind you of some fact or circumstance about which you have personal knowledge. If that should occur, it would be your duty as a good juror not to consider it for any purpose, your private knowledge of a matter, and you should not mention to any of your colleagues that you know anything about the case. You are to try the case solely upon the law and the evidence that is brought to your attention in the courthouse, and not in regard to something you have heard on the outside. You are asked on your voir dire whether you will try a case according to the law and the evidence. That means evidence which is introduced and admitted by the court; and if you consider anything that is not admitted by the court you would bo violating your oath, and be doing a great injustice to the parties litigant. I have heard jurors when I was in the practice say that the court excluded testimony, but they considered it just the same, because they thought it was pertinent to the issues. Now, if you do that, you can see where you would be doing the parties a great injustice. They accept you on the jury, believing that you will carry out 3rour oath; and if you should consider that which is not admitted by the court you will be violating your oaths, as well as doing them a great injustice.
“The verdict of a petit jury in the district court is the agjfeed consensus of opinion of each and all 12 men on the jury. It is not altogether what just one man thinks about the case, although it takes his opinion, agreed to with the others, to constitute a verdict. It is not just what 3 men, or 5 men, or 7 or 11 men, think. It is what each and all of the 12 men, after they have carefully considered the case, after they have exchanged ideas with each other, after they have discussed the matter from different viewpoints — it is what they are willing to agree upon in the case. Sometimes a juror, after he spends several days trying a case, goes into the jui'y consultation room, and just because every other juror does not think just exactly as he thinks, he thinks that there is no possible chance for the jury to agree, and he thinks that there is a hung jury. Men ought to he willing to discuss matters among themselves and get each other’s viewpoints. There is no two of you men alike. Every one of you are different. You are different in your looks, your statures, your physiognomies, your viewpoints, and every way; and yet, that being the case, it is possible for 12 men dissimilar in every way to reach a verdict that is just and righteous according to the law and the facts in the case.
“A hung jury is a detriment to the interest of the state, and also to the defendant, and to all parties litigant in civil cases. It ought to be just as easy for one set of 12 honest, upright, conscientious men constituting a jury to find a verdict on a given state of facts and the law as it would be for any other jury of 12 men of equal conscientiousness; ini other words, it ought to be just as easy for one jury to find a verdict on the same facts as it is for another jury on the same facts to reach a verdict. Some of us imagine that all of the contrariness in the world wears dresses. That is a mistake. Some of it wears pants; and if we would just weed out of the jury room all personal contrariness and personal arbitrariness, it would be very easy for von to find a verdict on the facts. If you will just forget the standing of parties, just forget what their names are, and who they are, and try the case according to the evidence and the law, a jury would have little trouble in reaching a verdict. If you will just forget for the time being who the parties are, tlieir standing, and their identity, and their names, and all about them, and just try the case as though you had never heard of it before, and then it is tried in a just and righteous way. The parties then, get the benefit of the law, applied to the facts of that particular case.
“In the trial of every criminal case a defendant is permitted to testify in his own behalf. That is a matter, however, which is regulated almost entirely by the judgment and discretion of his counsel. An attorney, under our law, might have a good reason, consistent with the innocence of his client, for not placing Mm on the stand. Under our law, where the defendant does not testify, you not only cannot consider it against him, but you cannot even mention that fact to any of your colleagues. If you should mention it, it would cause the court to set aside any verdict you might render, and might ’possibly cause the court to place a punis7ime,nt upon t%e juror who disobeys the instructions; so you want to be very careful.”
W. D. Morns, of Albany, S. W. Bishop, of Gorman, and J. R. Stubblefield, of Eastland, for appellant. O. O. McDonald, Asst Atty. Gen., for the State.

Opinion:
HARPER, J.
Appellant was convicted at the January, 1915, term of the district court of Eastland county of manslaughter, and his punishment was assessed by the jury at confinement in the state penitentiary for a period of five years.
Our able Assistant Attorney General has so ably discussed and disposed of every question raised in the motion for a new trial, we adopt the brief as the opinion of the court:
"Bill No. 1 complains that the court erred in giving verbal instructions to the panel of jurors for the week before this case was called for trial and before it was set for trial. A special venire was afterwards ordered, and two men, Dane and Gillette, who were on the panel for the second week, were accepted as jurors. At the time appellant made no objection to either juror, and the record does not disclose that appellant had exhausted his peremptory challenges when either of said jurors was accepted. This complaint is wholly without merit. Reed v. State, 168 S. W. 541; McGaughey v. State, 169 S. W. 287. But not only is this hill wholly without merit, but the entire instruction copied in this bill and delivered to the jury for the week on the part of the trial court was so able and so proper and so commendable that I ask this court, if they agree with me in this view, to copy said instruction in the opinion that it may be preserved in the jurisprudence of our state as an able appeal to the loftiest sentiments of citizenship.
"In the next two bills appellant complains that the court erred in permitting counsel for the state to read from a memorandum testimony which was given by the witness Alvin Tyrone before the grand jury, for the purpose of impeaching said witness and for the further purpose of placing him in a bad attitude before the jury; it being alleged that said witness was not an unwilling witness and state's counsel was not surprised at his testimony. The bill further complains that the court, in the presence and hearing of the jury, said to counsel, 'Gentlemen, I don't want any more of the time of the court wasted with frivolous controversies,' it being alleged that said remark was calculated to prejudice the rights of appellant. These hills as qualified and as accepted by appellant show that the only objection or exception taken by appellant was with reference to the district attorney's questioning the witness while looking at a piece of paper which he had in his hand. Judge Morris, for appellant, stated he objected to counsel reading from the testimony before the grand jury, and the district attorney replied that he was not reading from the grand jury testimony, but was referring to private notes in order to know how to frame questions to the witness. The court thereupon said that if it was the private notes of counsel he had a right to refresh his memory with them. Counsel for appellant then said it was either the grand jury testimony or testimony taken at the examining trial. The court ruled that, if the district attorney was using either grand jury testimony or examining trial testimony, the defendant could see it, but he had no right to see private notes of counsel for the state used purely as a memorandum to refresh his memory. These bills as qualified and accepted by appellant are wholly without merit, because appellant's counsel offered no testimony to show that the paper in the hands of the district attorney was testimony adduced at any former trial or hearing. And it was certainly proper for the court, in order to stop further colloquy between. counsel in the courtroom and in order to preserve order and decorum, to state to counsel to be seated; that he did not want any more time wasted with frivolous controversies, such as this one was.
"In the next bill appellant complains that the court erred in permitting the state to ask the witness Mrs. W. I. Tyrone, on. cross-examination, over appellant's objection: 'Is it not a fact that your husband, W. I. Tyrone, had you to place one hand on the Bible and one hand on your heart and say that there had never been anything wrong between you and Dr. Evers?' The bill nowhere discloses what answer was given to said question. But reference to the statement of facts discloses that the witness answered that he had not. In the first place, this was certainly legitimate and proper cross-examination. The defendant himself placed his wife on the stand and elicited from her the remarkable story that deceased had exerted hypnotic influence over her to such an extent that she was- powerless to resist him, and that, being absolutely devoid of will power, yet conscious of the doctor's acts, and while under Ms influence, she yielded to deceased and permitted him to have carnal intercourse with her; and further that she had communicated the story of her debauchery to her husband, and on account of the cMldren they had agreed to keep it quiet; that before she would tell Mm she exacted a promise from him that he would not kill deceased, etc. Certainly, therefore, the state had the right to ask her on cross-examination, not only what her husband said when such information was first communicated to him, hut how he was affected, and any other matter proper and material to the main testimony given, and further for the purpose of laying a predicate for her impeachment on any of such matters. See Dee Stacy Case, recently decided.
"In the second place, since no answer is set out in the bill, the same is insufficient, as this court cannot determine whether or not appellant was injuriously affected. And if reference be bad to the statement of facts, it will be observed that a negative answer was returned to said question, and hence appellant cannot claim that he was prejudiced thereby.
"Appellant also complains that the court erred in permitting the district attorney in his closing argument to read from a written memorandum made by himself which he referred to as testimony of some of the witnesses. Counsel for appellant thereupon requested the following instruction: 'You are instructed that the statement of the district attorney that a certain written instrument was the evidence of a witness in this case is not evidence, and you will not consider the statement so made by the district attorney whatever, hut you will disregard such statement, and you cannot consider the same against this defendant for any purpose.' It appears that when objection was made the court immediately orally instructed the jury that they could not consider the argument of the district attorney or of any other attorney as evidence in the case, and that the written memorandum from which the district attorney read to them a moment before while making his argument was not evidence and they should disregard the same. He further instructed them, in this connection, that unless they found that arguments of counsel were supported by the record evidence in the case they should disregard any portion of the same not supported by such evidence. However, after delivering such oral instruction, counsel for appellant wrote out a written charge to the same effect and asked the court to again interrupt state's counsel in order to road their written charge, which the court marked 'given,' and the court declined further to interrupt the speech of state's counsel. Said special charge was, however, handed to the jury with the court's main charge. As T view the matter, this bill is absolutely without the semblance of merit, and I believe it would be had the court refused to give either the written charge or the oral instruction. The writer of this brief has scarcely addressed a jury in' a murder case in which he did not take notes during the trial of tlie cause on important testimony from leading witnesses and copied it in his memoi-andum hoik, and while addressing the jury, in order to be absolutely correct in quoting the witnesses, would read from the memorandum the exact words by the witnesses, and has left it to the jury to say whether or not he was correct in quoting said witnesses' testimony. But in this case appellant certainly cannot complain because he had the benefit of both oral and written instructions; and, since the court had orally instructed them, certainly he was not called upon to again read to the jury the special charge which he had given.
"Appellant contends the court erred in sending for the jury after they had been deliberating on their verdict about 24 hours, and telling them he had to go to his homo in Abilene, and urging them to continue their deliberation conscientiously in an effort to arrive at a verdict. Tlie remarks are set out in full in the bill to which the court is respectfully referred. I submit that said instructions were altogether proper and commendable, and were but an appeal to tlie jury to do their duty as good citizens. His entire statement to them is absolutely devoid of a single improper reference or remark as I view it. Iio distinctly told them to take plenty of time, do good work, and stay in a good humor; all of which instructions were devoid of prejudices conducive to a well-considered, impartial, unbiased verdict. Muckleroy v. State, 42 S. W. 383; Dow v. State, 31 Tex. Cr. R. 278, 20 S. W. 583; Jordan v. State, 30 S. W. 445; Wilkerson v. State, 49 Tex. Cr. R. 170, 91 S. W. 228; Brady v. State, 74 S. W. 771; Carlisle v. State, 56 S. W. 365. I also submit that the necessity of the judge's going to his home in Abilene did not ipso facto adjourn said court, and that part of this complaint is without merit. White v. State, 61 Tex. Cr. R. 498, 135 S. W. 562; Scott v. State, 47 Tex. Cr. R. 568, 85 S. W. 1060, 122 Am. St. Rep. 717. He returned on the next day and remained in attendance on court.
"Appellant contends that the court erred in overruling his motion for a new trial on the ground of newly discovered evidence, in this, that the state, over objection of appellant, proved by the witness Dr. Sheppard that it was impossible for any person to wield a hypnotic influence over another person to the extent that such person would submit to the sexual embrace of such other person, or that the person under such influence would lose all will power to resist such act of intercourse, etc. Appellant alleges that for the first time, after the trial of this cause, he ascertained that the witness Dr. Johnson, a resident of Eastland county, would testify to the contrary. In connection with this bill, I ask the court to refer to appellant's motion for new trial wherein appellant alleges that Peterson & Haynes' Legal Medicine and Toxicology, vol. 2, p. 138, states that there is no doubt that the hypnotic state may be induced and used for sexual purposes, etc., and further states that said book is a standard medical authority. I attribute appellant's complaint as to newly discovered testimony to the untiring zeal on the part of his attorneys to find some pretext on which to hand at least a faint hope for a reversal of his cause, rather than to a desire to submit any real substantial matter to the court in this bill. It would be a reflection on the ability of appellant's counsel as criminal attorneys to say that they could not foresee that, when they introduced appellant's wife and elicited from her her wierd and unreasonable story, her testimony would be attacked by the state for every legitimate angle. And appellant's counsel must have known that the reasonableness of the story would depend on the reasonableness of hypnotic power. That very fact must have charged them with the duty to search the medical authorities on that -subject; and, when Dr. Sheppard had concluded his testimony, they had but to refer to the standard medical work upon which they rely for a new trial, the index of which would have immediately directed them to the paragraph which they now claim1 as newly discovered evidence, and, when they had found it, their necessity in the case would have immediately prompted them' to consult Dr. Johnson and all other able physicians to find testimony further to support their contention. But they did not even ask the time of the court to look up the medical authority or to consult with a physician; and certainly they cannot be heard to complain at this late date. The testimony of Dr. Sheppard adduced by the state and complained of herein was material on the part of the state because, if appellant's wife's story was unreasonable and probably untrue, then it would certainly be considered by the jury as tending to throw light on the fact as to whether or not she ever communicated such a story to her husband prior to the homicide.
"Appellant also insists that the court erred in overruling his motion for new trial because the evidence was wholly insufficient to sustain the conviction for manslaughter. And in apparent sincerity appellant's counsel contend that this is true because appellant himself says that he killed deceased in self-defense, and therefore, if he did, he should of necessity have been acquitted. Appellant's counsel at the moment must have forgotten that there were other witnesses who testified in this case, among them .being appellant's own children, his daughter-in-law, his aged mother, and others, and it must have for the moment escaped the attention of appellant's counsel that these witnesses had contradicted appellant on almost every material point in his entire testimony. The bill needs no further comment.
"The indictment in this case is valid, and the state's witnesses, if they are to be believed— and the jury evidently did believe them — furnished ample testimony on which to base the conviction. The charge of the court presents in a most favorable light to appellant every defense even remotely raised by the evidence of appellant's witnesses. Indeed, the charge is so perfect that not a single exception is taken to it by appellant's counsel. And not a single requested charge was asked and refused. An extended statement of the facts would be useless. As I view the record, it is absolutely clear of error on the part of the trial court, and the judgment should be affirmed."
And as requested by Mr. McDonald, the reporter, in connection with this case, will publish the court's remarks to the jury when it was impaneled for the week.
The judgment is affirmed.
<Ss»For other cases see same topic and KEY-NUMBER in all Key-Numbered Digests and Indexes
ite^For other cases see same tonic and KEY-NUMBER, in all Key-Numbered Digests and Indexes