Court Opinion

ID: 9833088
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 22:26:36.79353+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:59.577687
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
[2] Appellee urges that the case of Ledbetter v. Dallas County, 51 Tex. Civ. App. 140, 111 S. W. 193, cited in our original opinion, is not authority in point, because, as averred, Johnson county, according to the last United States census, has a population of less than 35,000, while Dallas county had, at the time of the decision above mentioned, more than 50,000 population. There appears to be no evidence in this case as to what the population of Johnson county was during the period from 1912 to 1916, covering Cooper’s two terms of office, though the testimony of the county judge tends to show that the commissioners’ court recognized the fact that the law made no provision for the payment by the commissioners’ court of Johnson county of the jailer’s salary. Nor was the question of the population of Dallas county in any way determinative of the issues in the Ledbetter decision. Moreover, article 1098, Crim. Proc., as it read at the time of this latter decision, made no distinction between counties on account of population with reference to the county’s allowance for jail guards or jailer. It provided:
“The sheriff shall be allowed for each guard necessarily employed in the safe keeping of prisoners one dollar and fifty cents for each day, and there shall not be any allowance made for the board of such guard, nor shall any allowance be made for jailer or turnkey.”
In 1909 this article was amended by adding to the sentence above the words, “except in counties having fifty thousand population or more.” It was further provided by this amendment that in counties having 50,000 population or more the commissioners’ court might allow'for each jail guard $2.50 per day. This article took the number 1143. The latter article was further amended at the first called'., session of' the' Legislature of 1915 (chapter 20) by changing the minimum population of the counties authorized to pay $2.50 a day for each jail guard, from 50,000 to 40;000, and further empowering the commissioners’ court in such counties to pay the jailer and turnkey $2.50 per day. Neither of these amendments, however, affects the question of the maximum .allowance for jail guards in counties having less than 40,000 inhabitants, or the question of the lack of-authority of the commissioners’ court in such counties of less population to make an allowance for jailer or turnkey. However, we are still of the opinion that the decision in the Ledbetter Case approved by the Supreme Court by the denial of the writ of error, controls the issues presented in this case. If the questions of law involved had not been determined by the 'Supreme Court, there might be room for doubt as to the correctness of our former holding, but we conclude that the questions of law presented and the facts in evidence in the two cases are essentially the same, and that the law has been decided adversely to appellee’s contention.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.