Court Opinion

ID: 9644016
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 20:46:28.691756+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:29:31.464535
License: Public Domain

KEITH, Justice,
concurring.
While I join in the affirmation of the judgment of the trial court, I do not agree completely with the rationale of the opinion affirming the case. At the outset, it appears to me that the case was not properly submitted to the jury. The inquiry in Special Issue No. one, upon which liability was imposed, submitted “intentional” wounding of the plaintiff. I submit that this was not an ultimate issue in the case.
The charge set out in Grieger v. Vega, 153 Tex. 498, 271 S.W.2d 85, 86-87 (1954), includes the ultimate issue — was the shooting wrongful? But, we do not have a point of error raising the specific point. Instead, we have an attack upon the failure of the court to define the word “intentionally”.
In essence, plaintiff’s pleadings alleged that defendant had committed an aggravated assault upon him in violation of the provisions of Tex.Penal Code Ann. §§ 22-01(a)(1) and 22.02(a)(3) (1974).* The Legislature, having defined the offense, also gave a definition for use in connection therewith. See Tex.Penal Code Ann. § 6.03(a) (1974) defining culpable mental states in this language:
“A person acts intentionally, or with intent, with respect to the nature of his conduct or to a result of his conduct when it is his conscious objective or desire to engage in the conduct or cause the result.”
The word “intentionally”, as defined in the Penal Code and as used in the special issue was not a “common term”. On the contrary, it was and is a word of art and the jury should have been instructed as to its meaning in the language used in the Penal Code.
As Justice Cornelius pointed out in the recent case of Hogenson v. Williams, 542 S.W.2d 456, 458 (Tex.Civ.App. — Texarkana 1976, no writ):
*677“An assault is an offense against the peace and dignity of the state, and the conduct constituting an assault is that which is described in the Penal Code. That conduct is also an invasion of private rights constituting a civil tort, but the definition of an assault is the same whether it is the subject of a criminal prosecution or a civil suit for damages.” (emphasis supplied)
In Hogenson, supra, the court found reversible error because of the failure of the trial court to define assault “in the terms of Section 22.01” of the Penal Code. (Id.) Here, the jury was left to speculate as to the meaning of the operative word in the offense — the word “intentionally”.
However, under our record, there is no question but that the defendant shot his brother voluntarily; the only question was whether or not he was justified in so doing under the doctrine of self-defense. Under these circumstances, I do not find the failure to define “intentionally” to be reversible error.
A charge on self-defense, as quoted in Grieger v. Vega, supra, would have afforded defendant all of the rights to which he was entitled. As noted by Justice Barrow in Bounds v. Caudle, 560 S.W.2d 925, 929, fn. 3 (Tex.1978):
“It is settled that the law of self-defense is the same in both civil and criminal cases. Fambrough v. Wagley, 140 Tex. 577, 169 S.W.2d 478 (1943).”
However, since the adoption of the new Penal Code, the charge on self-defense should be modified along the lines suggested by Judge Dally in Sternlight v. State, 540 S.W.2d 704, 705-706 (Tex.Cr.App.1976).
I concur in the disposition of the complaint because (a) the specific objection now under discussion was not included in the objections to the charge; and (b) the factual basis of the plea of self-defense is extremely weak, amounting to no more than the faint glimmer of evidence of a probative nature. Seideneck v. Cal Bayreuther Associates, 451 S.W.2d 752, 755 (Tex.1970).
With these qualifications, I concur in the affirmation of the judgment of the trial court.

 Sec. 22.01(a)(1) : “A person commits an offense if he: (1) intentionally . . . causes bodily injury to another . . .
Sec. 22.02(a)(3) defines an aggravated assault: “A person commits an offense if he commits assault as defined in Section 22.01 of this code and he: ... (3) uses a deadly weapon.”