Court Opinion

ID: 9648783
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 14:35:04.442949+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:05.401705
License: Public Domain

ON APPELLANT’S MOTION FOR REHEARING
DICE, Commissioner.
Appellant insists that the testimony admitted on her cross-examination, and later withdrawn by the court, with reference to the other checks of the series of stolen checks, constituted reversible error because the jury received not only information regarding their serial number but information that they were payable to and endorsed by Wenona M. Martin — which was the name of the payee and endorser of the check, No. 1827, passed to Safeway Store, as well as the name on the driver’s license seized from appellant — and the jury also received information that the address appearing on> some of the checks was the same address which appeared on the Safeway check and other checks admitted in evidence.
While the name Wenona B. Martin and certain addresses similar to those on the checks admitted into evidence were referred to, we remain convinced that in view of the court’s instruction to disregard the testimony and other testimony properly admitted in the record with reference to checks similar to those described in the indictment, no reversible error is shown.
Appellant Urges for the first time, in her motion for rehearing, that the court erred in permitting the state’s witness Wenona B. Martin to testify that appellant’s reputation for being a peaceable and law-abiding citizen was bad. Appellant insists that, in view of the witness’s admission that she did not know appellant personally, she was not *604qualified to speak with reference to her reputation. Appellant also insists that the proper predicate was not laid, because the state’s inquiry of the witness was with reference to her knowledge of appellant’s reputation in the community and not as to her general reputation.
The contention is also made that the witness’s means of knowledge, as shown by her cross-examination, was insufficient to permit her to base an answer that appellant’s reputation was bad.
The witness, before stating on direct examination that appellant’s reputation was bad, testified that she knew her reputation in the community where she resided. On cross-examination she stated that she had discussed appellant’s reputation with two named individuals.
In the early case of Davis v. State, 23 S.W. 684, this court held that it is not necessary that one be personally acquainted with another in order to speak as to his or her general reputation and that if the witness knows of such reputation his testimony is admissible.
While the inquiry should have been limited to appellant’s general reputation in the community, such was not the ground of appellant’s objection to the testimony, the objection being that the witness had testified she did not know appellant. No objection was made by appellant to the witness’s testimony on the ground that her means of knowledge was insufficient upon which to base her statement that appellant’s reputation was bad.
Appellant also urges as reversible error, for the first time, on rehearing, the court’s action in permitting state’s counsel to bring out on cross-examination of her sister, Ester Shivers, that the witness had been divorced from one Willie O’Dell Mays, some three or four weeks before the trial.
In support of her contention, appellant relies upon the decisions of this court, primarily in prosecutions for rape, that proof of prior marriages and divorces of the accused is not admissible unless such evidence tends to solve some disputed issue in the case.
While in Burnett v. State, 162 Tex.Cr.R. 1, 280 S.W.2d 260, we held it not error to exclude similar testimony, we have concluded that its admission in the present case— standing alone — does not constitute reversible error. Henderson v. State, 49 Tex.Cr. R. 269, 91 S.W. 569.
Remaining convinced that a proper disposition was made of the case on original submission, and no reversible error appearing, the motion for rehearing is overruled.
Opinion approved by the Court.
MORRISON, Judge (dissenting).