Court Opinion

ID: 9777226
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 20:03:07.085719+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:50.473889
License: Public Domain

ON MOTION FOR REHEARING
MORRISON, Presiding Judge.
Appellant takes us to task for our disposition of his Bill of Exception No. 1 upon the authority of Article 728, V.A.C.C.P., and asks that we differentiate the case at bar from our relatively recent opinion in Ward v. State, 160 Texas Cr. Rep. 232, 268 S. W. 465. We shall attempt to do so. In the Ward case the appellant testified that he had never been involved in an accident. *55He denied that he had had an accident in Winkler or Ward Counties. There was no proof that he had testified falsely. We held it reversible error for him to be asked on cross-examination if he had not paid a $200 fine in Ward County growing out of a wreck.
In the case at bar the witness King testified on direct examination by his counsel that he was carried before a justice of the peace charged with drunkenness but that he was not found guilty and fined on such charge. The state, in rebuttal, offered the justice of the peace before whom King appeared, who testified that in fact King had had a fine levied against him as a result of that charge.
In the Ward case we said, “Appellant admits that it would have been proper for the State to show, if they could, that contrary to appellant’s claim, he in fact had been involved in an accident.”
We think such statement presents an analogy to the case at bar. King testified that no fine had been assessed against him. The justice before whom he appeared testified to the contrary. The witness having gone into the matter of the fine, the state had the right to rebut his testimony by the person best qualified to do so. If we were in error in holding that Article 728 was controlling herein, it still remains axiomatic that where a witness testifies about a specific fact the opposing side may in rebuttal prove the falsity of such testimony.
Appellant next contends that we should discuss an informal bill of exception directed to a portion of the statement of facts which is in narrative form. Such consideration is not authorized by Article 759a, V.A.C.C.P.
Remaining convinced that we properly disposed of this cause originally, appellant’s motion for rehearing is overruled.