Case Name: ESSERY v. STATE
Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
Jurisdiction: Texas
Decision Date: 1913-12-17
Citations: 163 S.W. 17
Docket Number: 
Parties: ESSERY v. STATE.
Judges: 
Reporter: South Western Reporter
Volume: 163
Pages: 17–29

Head Matter:
ESSERY v. STATE.
(Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.
Dec. 17, 1913.
Rehearing Denied Jan. 14, 1914.)
1. Criminal Law (§ 889 ) — Trial—Verdict— Amendment.
Where the court in a prosecution for felony has accepted the verdict and discharged the jury, it is without authority to reconvene the jury and permit them to amend their verdict, and such amended verdict is a nullity.
[Ed. Note. — Eor other cases, see Criminal Law, Cent. Dig. §§ 2109, 2110, 2112; Dec. Dig. § 889. ]
2. Homicide (§ 313 ) — Trial—Verdict—Sufficiency.
In a prosecution for homicide, the court submitted only the question of murder in the first degree, and the jury returned a verdict reciting that they found accused guilty as charged and assessed >his punishment at imprisonment for life. Pen. Code 1911, art. 1141, defines murder in the first and second degrees, and article 1142 provides that, if the jury shall find any person guilty of murder, they shall also find whether it is in the first or second degree. Held that, as only one degree of murder was submitted, and the jury could not legally find accused guilty of any other, the verdict is sufficient'to support the conviction.
[Ed. Note. — Eor other cases, see Homicide, Cent. Dig. §§ 671-675; Dee. Dig. § 313. ]
3. Homicide (§ 342 ) — Appeal—Harmless Error.
An error which could not have resulted in hurt or harm to' the person on trial does not warrant reversal, and hence the failure, .of .the jury to find the degree of murder of which accused was convicted is not reversible, where only murder in the first degree was submitted.
[Ed. Note. — Eor other cases, see Homicide, Cent. Dig. § 722; Dec. Dig. § 342. ] >.
Davidson, J., dissenting.
Appeal from District Court, Bexar County; W. S. Anderson, Judge.
Grover Essery was convicted of murder, and he appeals.
Affirmed.
Will S. Payne, of Snyder, for appellant. C. E. Lane, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
For otter cases see same topic and section NUMBER in Dec. Dig. & Am. Dig. Key-No. Series & Rep’r Indexes

Opinion:
HARPER, J.
The indictment in this case charges that appellant did, with malice aforethought, hill L. T. Ammann. No statement of facts accompanies this record, and there is no question that can or should be reviewed in the absence of a statement of facts, except the one in which appellant complains of the' action of the court in sustaining the verdict as rendered and in permitting the jury to amend their verdict. This presents a serious question, and one to which we have given much thought since occupying this high, position. No one, under any circumstances, should be deprived of any right given him by the laws of this state, and, if any provision of our Code of Criminal Procedure has been overlooked or disregarded, if, in the remotest degree, it could have been hurtful or harmful to the person on trial, the verdict should be set aside. He has a right to be tried in accordance with the rules and forms of law, and, if this sort of a trial is not accorded him, he has a right to complain, and to this complaint we will always give an attentive ear. In one ground of the motion we find the following complaint: "The court erred in permitting the jury, after they had been discharged by the court on Thursday evening at 7:45 o'clock, and after they had rendered a verdict in the case, to again have them resummoned to reform their verdict; that said summons and said reformation of said verdict was on Saturday, the 21st day of June, 1913, after they had mixed and mingled with the outside world they were again resummoned and came into open court and reformed their verdict; that said verdict as it was originally rendered was void, in that they failed to state what they found the defendant guilty of, in that they omitted the words 'murder in the first degree'; that by reason of said words being omitted in the verdict as it was originally rendered, rendered said verdict void for the reason that they had been discharged by the court, and for the further reason that they were not permitted to talk with any one before the rendition of the original verdict, and after the returning of same into open court, and after their discharge by the court, and their mixing and mingling with the outer world, and some of them having discussed the case; that said reformation of said verdict is void and was error on the part of the court, and was error on the part of the district attorney in requesting said reformation in said verdict to be made."
Of course, after the court had accepted the verdict and discharged the jury on the 19th, it had no authority or power to reconvene this jury two days later, and permit them to amend their verdict. This was erroneous, and the ámendment of the verdict gave no force nor validity thereto, other than the verdict was originally entitled to as' first rendered and accepted by the court. This is true both in civil and criminal cases (Cookville Coal & Lumber Co. v. Evans [Civ. App.] 135 S. W. 750). So the verdict, if sustained, must be held sufficient as originally rendered.
It then read: "We, the jury, find the defendant guilty as charged in the indictment, and assess his punishment at imprisonment for life." Article 1141, P. 0-, describes murder in the first and second degrees ; and article 1142 requires that the jury shall state in their verdict whether they find the person on trial guilty of murder in the first or the second degree. We have cases that hold it was error for the jury to fail to so find, even though the facts only authorized a charge on murder in the first degree. See Johnson v. State, 30 Tex. App. 419, 17 S. W. 1070, 28 Am. St. Rep. 930, and Brooks v. State, 42 Tex. Cr. R. 347, 60 S. W. 53. But neither of these cases are reversed solely ón that ground. In the case of Johnson, supra, the court committed an error in its charge, and in the Brooks Case, supra, the charge was also held to be erroneous, in many cases, which will be found collated in section 842 of Branch's Crim. Law, it will be seen that this court has held a verdict erroneous which fails to state the degree of murder of which the person on trial has been adjudged guilty. But in none of them has the case been reversed because of this error alone. When murder was divided into degrees, it was proper, where more than one degree of murder was submitted to the jury, to require the jury to state of which degree they found the person on trial guilty, for if a new trial was granted it was material to a defendant to know of which grade of homicide he had been found guilty, for, if only of murder in the second degree, the death penalty could not be inflicted on the second trial. Therefore, when murder was divided into two degrees, and both degrees were submitted to the jury, it was a valuable right for the defendant to have determined of what degree of murder he had been adjudged guilty. However, in this case the court submitted to the jury only murder in the first degree, and they were not and could not be authorized to return a verdict of guilty of murder of any other degree than 'murder in the first degree. Had the court submitted both murder in the first and second degrees, there would be merit in appellant's contention, but, as the court submitted only murder in the first degree to the jury, their verdict could not be interpreted nor understood as finding appellant guilty of any other degree than that submitted to them, and, while, perhaps, it was erroneous to have accepted the verdict, which did not specifically find that appellant was guilty of murder in the first degree and so state, yet, when we take the indictment, the charge of the court, and the verdict as first returned, it is not only a necessary, but the only, conclusion that could be arrived at — the jury did find appellant guilty of murder in the first degree. This was the only issue submitted to them, and, while the verdict may be said to be erroneous, it is not such error as calls or will necessitate a reversal of the case. Any other construction of article 1142 of the Penal Code would be a strained construction, and never intended by the Legislature. After dividing murder in two degrees, it was intended that when the two degrees were submitted to the jury, then the jury should be required to find of what degree he had been adjudged guilty. But when the Code said that murder committed in a certain way was murder of ⅛⅛ first degree, the law so makes it, and a jury by their verdict could not find otherwise.
We have often heard discussed technicalities of the law. The writer is of the opinion that, while some of the language used in somp of the opinions may be said to be technical, yet there are really no technicalities in the law. Á matter is either erroneous or not, and, if erroneous, and it could have resulted in hurt or harm to the person on trial, the case should be reversed. But, even though the matter complained of may be said to be erroneous, yet, if by no construction the error, if error there be, could have resulted in hurt or harm, then it is wrong to reverse the case. In this case no error was committed in the trial of the case as shown by this record; neither was there error in the charge of the court, and the only matter complained of is that the verdict' in plain language did not state of what degree of murder the appellant was found guilty, when only one degree of murder was submitted to them for their consideration, and under this record we must presume that the facts showed, if appellant was guilty of any offense, it was by the Code declared to be murder in the first degree. Under such circumstances, it seems to us the height of absurdity to say we cannot determine by the indictment, the charge, and the verdict of what degree of murder appellant was found guilty, and, although we may be said to have some cases that incline to that view of the law, yet we cannot get our assent to follow such a technical construction of the law. We do not think the articles of the Code referred to calls for or will bear such construction, but when the law says murder committed under given circumstances is murder in the first degree, and the court instructs the jury that if it was not committed in that way by the appellant to acquit, then to say that the verdict of guilty could be other than for murder in the first degree seems to us an absurdity.
The judgment is affirmed.