Court Opinion

ID: 9639834
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 16:49:42.840294+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:22.262237
License: Public Domain

ON appellant’s motion for rehearing
WOODLEY, Judge.
Appellant complains that our original opinion did not discuss and rule upon his complaint that the trial court omitted a charge on alibi.
The prosecutrix testified that the act of sodomy was committed upon her on February 15, 1955, in the home.
The testimony of appellant which he says raised the issue of alibi and entitled him to a charge thereon reads as follows:
“Q. Would you tell the jury the last two or three years you have been drinking pretty heavy? A. Yes, sir, I have been drinking heavily.---
“Q. Now, Mr. Windham, have you ever had anything immoral to do with your daughter? A. No, sir.---
“Q. Now, do you know the week of, previous to, let me have the dates of those indictments, 15th of February, were you at home about the 15th of February, or do you know? A. I couldn’t say. I would have to look up here on the book. I couldn’t say.
*584“Q. You don’t know whether you were even at home or not? A. No, sir, I don’t.
“Q. You heard your daughter testify that you were at home there with her by herself, and that you had her to commit the offense of sodomy, her on you, did that happen? A. No, sir.”
Alibi is defined to be the presence in another place than that described. When an accused proves that he was at the time in question in a different place from that in which the crime was committed, he is said to prove an alibi.
If the evidence raises the issue that the defendant was at some other place at the time and could not therefore have committed the crime, a charge on the defense of alibi is called for.
An instruction as to alibi is not required when the defendant merely denies that he was at the place where the crime was committed, but does not offer affirmative evidence as to his presence elsewhere. Byas v. State, 41 Tex. Cr. R. 51, 51 S.W. 923; Rippey v. State, 86 Tex. Cr. R. 539, 219 S.W. 463.
But where the facts as tesified to by the defendant or other witnesses, if true, show that he was at another or different place than the scene of the crime, the issue is raised, it not being essential that the witness testify in so many words that he was at another and different place or to name such place. Padron v. State, 41 Tex. Cr. R. 548, 55 S. W. 827.
As we view the testimony above quoted, the issue was not raised, and the trial court did not err in declining to charge on the subject of alibi.
Appellant’s motion for rehearing is overruled.