Court Opinion

ID: 9778311
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 20:59:51.91422+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:07.497305
License: Public Domain

*954OPINION ON STATE’S MOTION FOR REHEARING
DICE, Judge.
On original submission, a majority of this court, with Judge MORRISON dissenting, found the evidence sufficient to show a specific intent to kill Officer Williams and affirmed the judgment of conviction.
On appellant’s motion for rehearing, a majority, with Judge WOODLEY dissenting, concluded that the evidence was insufficient to show such intent to kill and reversed the judgment of conviction.
The state has filed a motion for rehearing, supported by an original and two supplemental briefs, and a majority of the court, upon again considering the record, now conclude that the evidence is sufficient to sustain the conviction.
As shown in our original opinion, the evidence is sufficient to warrant the conclusion that appellant was making the assault upon Idonia Pierre with the specific intent to kill her, and when Officer Williams, the injured party, attempted to stop him appellant cut him with the knife and continued his assault upon Idonia.
Art. 42 of our Vernon’s Ann.Penal Code provides:
“One intending to commit a felony and who in the act of preparing for or executing the same shall through mistake or accident do another act which, if voluntarily done, would be a felony, shall receive the punishment affixed to the felony actually committed.”
In his charge to the jury, the court gave application to the provisions of Art. 42, supra.
Through the years this court has given application to the provisions of Art. 42, supra, in cases of assault with intent to murder.
In Smith v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 95 S.W. 1057, (1906), it was held that where one, while trying to murder a person, unintentionally cuts another he is guilty of assault with intent to murder the latter.
In Covert v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 113 S.W.2d 556 (1938), it was held that under the statute, Art. 42, supra, an accused who entered a cafe intending to assault a police officer and pointed a pistol at him which was “ ‘easy on the trigger,’ ” which pistol discharged and struck another officer who was attempting to disarm him, was guilty of assault with intent to murder the latter officer.
In the more recent case of Hayes v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 353 S.W.2d 25 (1962), this court held that a charge which authorized a conviction for assault with intent to murder, upon a finding by the jury that the defendant shot one person while intending to shoot another, was authorized under Art. 42, supra.
The provisions of Art. 42, supra, have also been applied in cases of homicide where the fatal shot which killed the deceased was intended for someone else. Hodges v. State, 160 Tex.Cr.R. 579, 272 S.W.2d 902. See, also, Washburn v. State, 167 Tex.Cr.R. 125, 318 S.W.2d 627, in which it was held that the jury was authorized to conclude that the accused committed the murder of the deceased by attaching a dynamite bomb to an automobile with the intent of killing the husband of the deceased but by accident and mistake killed the deceased.
Art. 41 of the Penal Code, which makes mistake of fact an offense under certain circumstances, is not applicable in the instant case.
Appellant’s conviction may be upheld under the doctrine of “transferred intent,” which had its roots in the old common-law action of trespass and originated in the thirteenth century in the king’s court in England. The doctrine of transferred *955intent was carried over to the United States in criminal cases in which poisoning, shooting, striking, or throwing a missile resulted in injury to the wrong person. In such cases, not only is intent transferred but also the degree of the crime and any defenses that would be valid if the intended victim had been hit. For a discussion of the subject, see the article by Professor William L. Prosser, University of California, Hastings College of Law, in Vol. 45, No. 4, of Texas Law Review, at page 650.
Trimble v. State, supra, cited by Judge MORRISON in his dissenting opinion, and the instant case are distinguishable upon the facts and circumstances surrounding the assaults.
This court, now being of the opinion that the evidence is sufficient to sustain the conviction, should be the first to correct its own mistake.
Accordingly, the state’s motion for rehearing is granted, the opinion on appellant’s motion for rehearing reversing the conviction is withdrawn, and the judgment of conviction is affirmed.