Court Opinion

ID: 9672595
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:57:47.256654+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:17.425309
License: Public Domain

ON APPELLANT’S MOTION FOR REHEARING
BELCHER, Commissioner.
Appellant reurges that the evidence is insufficient to support the conviction. He insists that the cases of Villareal v. State, 140 Tex.Cr.R. 675, 146 S.W.2d 406, and Riddle v. State, 106 Tex.Cr.R. 269, 291 S.W. 910, require a reversal of this case.
In Villareal the death penalty was assessed for murder. To show malice the state’s theory was that the accused stabbed the deceased while riding on horseback behind him and drug his body over hard ground to where it was found. The appellant testified that deceased was on top of him and choking him and he cut him to extricate himself from a death grip.
The doctor’s conclusion of the position of the parties when the fatal wound was inflicted supported the state’s theory and bore on the vital issue to be decided by the jury and was inadmissible and called for reversal. Therefore the reversal in Villareal was on a ground not here presented.
The conviction in Riddle, supra, was for accepting a deposit in an insolvent bank. The state offered no direct evidence. The question was the validity of Art. 557 P.C. (since repealed) and whether the evidence offered by the defendant was sufficient to overcome the state’s prima facie case under the statute. In the case at bar we have no such prima facie presumption, and, upon reexamination, we find the evidence sufficient to support the jury verdict.
Appellant’s motion for rehearing is overruled.
Opinion approved by the Court.