Court Opinion

ID: 9673981
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:21:30.862078+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:25.060425
License: Public Domain

On Motion For Rehearing
WOODLEY, Judge.
Appellant seriously and earnestly complains of our disposition of his bills of exception relating to the overruling of his motion to quash the indictment. He especially complains of this court’s quoting from the statement of Judge Dowdy because such statement includes matters known to the judge personally and which transpired outside of the courtroom and before the indictment was returned against appellant.
We recognize the correctness of the rule which requires that as to such matters known personally to the judge but which did not transpire during the trial and were not in some manner immediately connected therewith, the judge as to such ¡matters must assume the attitude of a witness and make his statement as such. See 4 Tex. Jur. 276; Forrester v. State, 95 *226Tex.Cr.R. 62, 252 S.W. 785; Swidan v. State (page 29 of this volume) 238 S.W. 2d 537; Milliman v. State, (page 88 of this volume), 238 S.W. 2d 970.
The quotation from Judge Dowdy’s explanation was set out in the original opinion because this court was impressed with the care and caution he appeared to have used to see that appellant’s constituitonal rights, as interpreted by the Supreme Court of the United States in Cassell v. Texas, 94 L. Ed 839, 339 U.S. 282-305 were fully protected and so as to eliminate any possibility of racial discrimination such as was held to exist in the Cassell case.
We disaffirm any intention of holding that the statements of the judge as to outside facts known to him personally and which were in issue at the hearing on the motion to quash the indictment may be taken into consideration and weighed against the testimony of witnesses who testified on the hearing on the motion.
The burden was upon appellant to sustain the allegations of his motion to quash the indictment. Neither the judge nor the jury commissioners were called to testify, nor did appellant offer the testimony of any witness who was present when the jury commissioners were sworn and instructed by the court. The testimony of the grand jurors called does not support the allegations that the judge invaded the province of the jury commissioners. The trial judge correctly concluded that no evidence heard by him “showed any influence of the judge on the jury commission.”
Appellant failed to show that he was denied any right to which he was entitled under the constitution or laws of the United States or of this state in the presentment of the indictment against him. He has been ably represented before this court as well as the trial court by his court-appointed counsel.
His trial was upon a plea of guilty before a jury in the selection of which no question appears to have been raised.
The facts are such as to warrant the infliction of the extreme penalty by any fair jury who are not opposed to capital punishment.
No error appears authorizing or requiring a reversal of the conviction.
*227Appellant’s motion for rehearing is therefore overruled.
Opinion approved by the Court.