Court Opinion

ID: 9829832
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 19:39:44.293069+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:07.223562
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
At the request of appellant, the following additional facts are found: After the firing of the first shot, the defendant went upon the front porch of his home, above his store building, and then saw an automobile parked immediately adjacent to his building. He did not see any one inside the car, but directed two or three times that if any one were in the car, for him to get out. Plaintiff then got out of the car and went west about fifteen feet and turned off, proceeding diagonally across the highway. Plaintiff never said a word to the defendant from the time he left the car until defendant fired the shot. Plaintiff went into the street at a fast walk, got halfway, or about to the center line of the concrete, at which point he was approximately sixty feet from the point where defendant stood on his porch. Plaintiff had his back to defendant. Defendant then fired his gun, and plaintiff speeded up to the point of running.
Appellant insists that the jury’s finding to issue No. 12 was “entirely without evidence, is unsupported by any competent evidence, and should be ignored.” Defendant was in his home at the time he fired the second shot. Plaintiff’s brother had just prior thereto attempted to gain entrance at the kitchen door. At the front, an automobile was parked on defendant’s premises immediately adjacent to his building. Plaintiff was in this car. He had failed to answer when spoken to. Appellant concedes that the evidence viewed from defendant’s standpoint would warrant a jury in believing the “defendant’s state of mind was such that he was afraid of further trouble with the three men, namely, plaintiff, his brother-in-law and his brother.” Defendant did not see plaintiff’s brother. Defendant did not know what this brother was doing or where he was. The automobile was still there, and it was night. Under the facts and circumstances surrounding this occurrence, set out in the original petition and including the additional findings of fact, it is thought that the jury’s answer to No. 12, that defendant fired the second shot in preventing or interrupting an intrusion upon the lawful possession of his property, is not without support in the evidence. McMurrey Corp. v. Yawn, supra; Koons v. Rook, supra; Petty v. State, supra; Black v. State, supra; Richardson v. State, supra; Barron v. State, 23 Tex.App. 462, 5 S.W. 237.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.