Court Opinion

ID: 9768458
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 06:03:58.003749+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:40.971828
License: Public Domain

ON MOTION FOR REHEARING
MORRISON, Presiding Judge.
On original submission we did not discuss Appellant’s Bill of Exception No. 20 in detail. We shall do so now. Appellant’s former employer Thompson, while testifying for the defense, stated that the appellant left on May 7 without giving any warning that he was quitting his job and that he did not see him for two months thereafter. He then stated that on July 2 the appellant called him from Dallas, but the witness was not permitted to give the jury the substance of their conversation at that time or later when the appellant arrived in Texarkana. For the purpose of the bill, in the absence of the jury, it was developed that Thompson would have testified as to the telephone conversation that the appellant asked about getting his job back and that Thompson told him that he would have to first “straighten up with the Sheriff.” To this the appellant replied that “he didn’t have anything to straighten up with the Sheriff.” It was further developed that when the appellant arrived at *536Texarkana he told the witness that he did not know that he had been indicted.
Appellant would have us hold that the appellant’s statement that he had nothing to straighten up with the sheriff was admissible as an explanation of flight. He relies upon several cases, the strongest of which is Ballenger v. State, 63 Texas Cr. Rep. 657, 141 S.W. 91. In that case, certain cotton was stolen from the accused’s place of employment and the accused fled. We held it error for the trial court to refuse to allow the witness Jones to testify in explanation of appellant’s flight, evidence of which had been introduced by the state, that the appellant had told him, presumably while he was in hiding, that he was not avoiding arrest but was following the advice of his lawyer, who had suggested that he stay out of town until the guilt of a fellow employee could be established.
We must now determine whether the Ballenger case is here controlling. These statements of the appellant were made some two months after the theft, and he said he had nothing to straighten up with the sheriff. This statement said, in effect, “I am guiltless of all crime and hence have no business with the sheriff,”- but does it say, “I left town immediately following the theft because I was afraid that I and not the guilty party would be accused of the theft” or give any other explanation of his flight? We think not. The statement did not explain his flight; it merely said, “I am guilty of nothing,” and the rule in the Ballenger case has no application here.
Remaining convinced that we properly disposed of this cause originally, appellant’s motion for rehearing is overruled.