Court Opinion

ID: 9778621
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 21:14:01.692732+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:12.141048
License: Public Domain

MORRISON, Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the affirmance of this conviction which upholds the constitutionality of Article 1404b, V.A.P.C. Appellant’s complaint is that the statute both before and after its amendment did not require that the entry be made without the consent of the person in charge of such vehicle. Reliance is had upon Musick v. State, 121 Texas Cr. Rep. 616, 51 S.W. 2d 715, which holds that “the definition of larceny which omits ‘without the consent of the owner’ is now universally conceded to be defective” and that a theft statute which omits such an element is inoperative as such.
I am aware of no constitutional or statutory requirement which would render the Legislature powerless to enact a penal statute which falls within a certain category of crime without making each element of that crime, as it is elsewhere denounced in the statutes or as it was known at common law, an essential element of such new act. In order to come within the purview of Article 6, the failure to include such element must render the statute so indefinite or of such doubtful construction that it might not be understood. This is not, as I see it, the case before us here.
If Musick, supra, and Brunson v. State, 123 Texas Cr. Rep. 342, 58 S.W. 2d 1099, are to be construed as contrary to the result here reached, I would overrule the same.