Court Opinion

ID: 9643662
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 20:36:57.688912+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:02.170117
License: Public Domain

ON APPELLANT’S MOTION FOR REHEARING.
DAVIDSON, Judge.
Appellant renews his insistence upon the inadmissibility of the testimony of the officers showing or tending to show that, at the time they apprehended appellant, he was then engaged in acts of sodomy upon the prosecutrix.
The trial court refused to certify that the evidence was not a part of the res gestae. It is apparent, therefore, that he construed such testimony as being a part of the res gestae of the unlawful act for which appellant was then upon trial, such act being that of aggravated assault by an adult male upon the person of a female.
*85The manner in which the trial court submitted the case to the jury lends emphasis to that conclusion, because nowhere did the trial court elect upon any transaction or state of facts by which the jury might predicate guilt. To the contrary, the jury were authorized to convict upon any state of facts which they concluded showed appellant guilty, for there was no charge defining to the jury the term, “assault,” or in any manner advising the jury as to what, in law, would constitute an assault.
The facts showing or tending to show that appellant was guilty of the crime of sodomy were not only covered by the allegations of the information, but the state was authorized to predicate a conviction thereon.
It must be remembered that it is within the power of the state to carve out of any transaction or state of facts any crime which is revealed thereby, and to prosecute therefor.
So far as this record shows, the assault of which the jury found appellant guilty was and could have been the assault occurring in the commission of the crime of sodomy.
It is apparent that the testimony of the officers was not only a part of the res gestae but also set forth facts upon which the jury might predicate their verdict.
Appellant insists that the testimony of the officers may not be given the construction just noted, because of the certificate of the trial court in the bills of exception to the effect that the charge against appellant was predicated upon injuries received by the prosecuting witness in a fight.
As above pointed out, it is impossible, in the light of the court’s charge, for the trial court to have known — or any one else to know — upon what state of facts the jury based its conviction. Of necessity, therefore, the certificate of the trial court could not restrict or limit the application of the jury’s verdict to any particular state of facts".
The motion for rehearing is overruled.
Opinion approved by the court.