Court Opinion

ID: 9763907
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 03:00:41.493001+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:51.049510
License: Public Domain

ON MOTION FOR REHEARING
DICE, Judge.
*125In his motion for rehearing, appellant strenuously insists that we were in error, in holding that the court did not err in refusing to require the state to elect the act upon which it relied for a conviction at the close of the state’s case in chief. Appel-lent relies upon Johnson v. State, 110 Tex. Cr. R. 292, 8 S. W. 2d 121, where a conviction was reversed because of the court’s refusal to require the state to elect at the close of the state’s testimony. In the Johnson case the testimony showed two acts of intercourse with the prosecutrix, one by the accused and another by his companion, which, as stated in the court’s opinion, authorized a finding that both were principal offenders in each of the rapes. In the Johnson case the court charged on principals and under the charge the jury was authorized to convict the accused for either offense. In the case at bar, appellant’s guilt under the court’s charge, as stated in our original opinion, was made to depend solely upon the jury’s finding that he was acting as a principal with Ted Vargas in the commission of the offense. The court’s charge was tantamount to an election. Williams v. State, 105 S. W. 1024, and Hazzard v. State, 115 Tex. Cr. R. 622, 27 S. W. 2d 191. Under the charge the jury could only convict appellant upon a finding that he acted as a principal with Ted Vargas. It could not, as contended by appellant, convict him upon a finding that he acted as a principal with any of his other companions.
Remaining convinced that the case was properly disposed of in our opinion upon original submission, the motion for rehearing is overruled.
Opinion Approved by the Court.