Court Opinion

ID: 9762226
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:17:05.428591+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:32.153065
License: Public Domain

McDONALD, Judge
(concurring).
While appellant did not effectively get before us his contention, he did get before us by brief and oral argument the two cases in support of his position. The two cases relied upon by counsel and which he refers to as “landmark cases” are the well known “stomping” and “drowning” cases of Northern v. State, 150 Tex.Cr.R. 511, 203 S.W.2d 206 and Gragg v. State, 148 Tex.Cr.R. 267, 186 S.W.2d 243. In the Northern case this Court held that an indictment charging that the defendant killed deceased by kicking *81and stomping her without charging that defendant stomped with his feet was fatally defective as failing to charge the means employed in commission of the offense. In the Gragg case it was held that an indictment charging that the defendant with malice killed another by then and there drowning her was defective as not alleging the manner and means used in accomplishing the drowning. Although this Court deviated from the holding in the Gragg case on rehearing and took the position and made it clear that its holding was grounded on the proposition that the defect in the indictment was in the State’s failure to allege the overt act of drowning such as that the defendant held his wife’s head under water or that he pushed her from a boat instead of as was alleged, that he killed her with malice by drowning her, this opinion, along with the opinion in Northern, supra, has not, to the writer’s knowledge, been cited as authority to this Court since the two opinions were written in 1945 (Gragg) and 1947 (Northern) . At this juncture, I should also like to observe that none of the present members of this Court were members of the Court at the time of rendition of these two decisions. Yet, this Court is still frequently criticized on account of these two cases and the Court still has them flaunted at it as expressing the philosophy of this Court. While the writer does not feel that a judge should be immune from criticism, and his acts should certainly not be based upon public approval or public disapproval, I do feel that this Court should at this time in this case take the opportunity of voicing its disapproval of these two decisions. While I might be criticized for reaching out and going out of my way to overrule the Northern and Gragg cases, supra, I think that it should be done and that this Court should do it in the majority opinion. To follow the holdings in these cases would cause an injustice today in favor of the defendant in so far as the rights of society or the efficiency of courts are concerned and would be a form of stare decisis neurosis on the part of this court.
It seems to me that just as this court reached'out when these two decisions were written, that we should now reach out and overrule them. The two cases may never -be cited again, and this Court will never follow them, I am sure, but in the interest of the jurisprudence of this state I think that the cases should be overruled.
I concur in the disposition of this case.