Court Opinion

ID: 9862910
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 02:27:25.720077+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:38:06.947192
License: Public Domain

ON APPELLANT’S motion for rehearing
DICE, Judge.
Appellant re-urges his contention that the court erred in admitting his written confession in evidence. He insists that because he was not given the statutory warning until after he had orally confessed to the crime his subsequent written confession should not have been admitted.
While the record shows that appellant was not warned by the officer prior to the time he orally confessed to the crime, the evidence shows that he was duly warned prior to his signing the confession which was admitted in evidence.
In De Beauford v. State, 95 Texas Cr. Rep. 398, 254 S.W. 572, a similar contention as here urged by appellant was over*434ruled by the court where the evidence showed that the accused was duly warned before he signed the confession introduced in evidence.
Judge Lattimore, speaking for the court in disposing of the contention, said: “The statement alleged to be the confession of appellant does not become his until his signature is affixed thereto.”
We again overrule appellant’s contention.
We also find no error in the court’s action in admitting the confession in evidence over appellant’s objection that it related to an offense different from that charged in the indictment. The indictment charged that the offense was committed on or about the 12th day of April, 1961. The prosecuting witness testified that appellant had intercourse with her on the night of April 12, 1961, at their home.
In his confession, appellant stated:
“On or about the 12th or 13th day of April, 1961, I had an intercourse with my daughter * * * at our home * * * this was the first I had done a thing like this and the last * * * I was sitting in the living room watching television and * * * my daughter came in the room with just a slip and her underwear on — she sat down in my lap — then we had an intercourse * *
While appellant stated in his confession that the act of intercourse took place in the living room, where he was watching television, and the prosecuting witness testified the act occurred on a bed in his bedroom, both stated that there was only one act on the night in question, which the record shows was April 12, 1961, the date alleged in the indictment. Under the record, the confession was not subject to the objection made by appellant.
We observe that the court in his charge, to which no objection was made, instructed the jury that if they believed from the evidence or had a reasonable doubt thereof that the prosecuting witness was an accomplice and that the act of intercourse alluded to in appellant’s confession was a separate and distinct act from that testified to by her, then to acquit him. Such instruction amply protected appellant against the jury convicting upon the uncorroborated testimony of an accomplice.
*435We overrule appellant’s contention that he was denied due process of law because he was not taken before a magistrate for an examining trial prior to return of the indictment against him. Appellant made no request for an examining trial. Recently, in Singleton v. State, 171 Texas Cr. Rep. 196, 346 S.W. 2d 328, it was held that an accused might not be heard to complain because the grand jury indicted him prior to the holding of an examining trial.
Remaining convinced that a proper disposition was made of the case on original submission, the motion for rehearing is overruled.
Opinion approved by the Court.