Court Opinion

ID: 9685087
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 14:22:55.424528+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:02.209806
License: Public Domain

ON MOTION FOR REHEARING.
GRAVES, Presiding Judge.
The only question presented to us in the motion for rehearing is the insufficiency of the indictment, the charging part of which reads as follows:
*100“* * * that Marvin E. Kendrick on or about the 11th day of July, A.D., one thousand nine hundred and fifty and anterior to the presentment of this indictment, in the County of Harrison and State of Texas, did then and there unlawfully while intoxicated and under the influence of intoxicating liquor, drive and operate a motor vehicle, to-wit, an automobile, upon a public highway of this state, to-wit, the public highway leading from Hallsville to Longview, the said highway being designated TJ. S. Highway 80, and did then and there, in Harrison County, Texas, in the execution of said unlawful act, through mistake and accident, kill Martha Ann Hickey by then and there driving said automobile into and causing it to collide with the automobile occupied by her, the said Martha Ann Hickey, against the peace and dignity of the State.”
This indictment is claimed to be fatally defective because it does not allege how or in what manner the deceased person was jarred, bruised, wounded, etc., or how her death was caused in such collision.
We are cited to the case of Houston v. State, 143 Tex. Cr. R. 460, 158 S.W. (2d) 1004, in which it seems that the indictment did allege that in such collision the body of the deceased was jarred and bruised, from which injuries she died. However, that matter appears incidental, and no ruling was had relative to the sufficiency or insufficiency of such allegations. We are also cited to the case of Simmons v. State, 145 Tex. Cr. R. 448, 169 S.W. (2d) 171, which seems to be identical with this cause as to the allegations in the indictment. No question was made in either of such decisions relative to the sufficiency of the indictment, but in each instance the indictment seems to have been upheld without any ruling thereon except that the case was finally decided on other matters. The Simmons case was affirmed under an indictment of exact identity with the one in this cause.
We also turn to Form No. 505, in Willson’s Texas Criminal Forms (4th Edition), and find that the instant indictment conforms with that laid down by Judge Willson.
The motion for rehearing will be overruled.