Court Opinion

ID: 9645402
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 21:23:35.71105+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:28.091658
License: Public Domain

DAVIDSON, Judge,
(concurring in part and dissenting in part)
I concur in the reveral of this case for the reasons stated by the court, but I do not agree that a case of guilt is made under the statute by proof, merely, that a convict is found in possession of a pistol away from the premises where he lives, within five years from his discharge from the penitentiary— which the court holds to be the proper construction to be given to the statute.
Such holding gives no effect to that provision of Sec. 4 of Art. 489c. Vernon’s P. C., which says that:
“The penal provisions of this Act shall not apply to any person * * * who has not been convicted of a penal offense during the five-year period next immediately following his discharge or release from the penitentiary.”
Such exemption, written as a double negative, has the positive meaning and must be given the construction that no convict may be convicted under the act for carrying a pistol unless he has been convicted of a penal offense within five years following his discharge from the penitentiary.
It is clear, then, that to sustain a conviction under the statute the state must prove: (a) the prior conviction for a felony, (b) the discharge of the convict after serving his sentence, (c) his conviction for a penal offense during the five-*490year period following his discharge, and (d) thereafter and within the five-year period after his discharge the convict had in his possession a pistol, away from the premises upon which he lived.
There must be two prior convictions proven: one for the felony and the other for any penal offense, misdemeanor or felony, following discharge from the penitentiary. Such are the requirements the legislature has written into the statute, and the courts have no right to rewrite, amend, or change that statute or to authorize a conviction upon facts fewer than those reqiured under the statute.