Court Opinion

ID: 9642989
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 18:14:30.602241+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:54.836596
License: Public Domain

ON APPELLANT’S MOTION FOR REHEARING
McDonald, judge.
Appellant’s able counsel urges in his Motion for Rehearing the alleged failure of this Court to give due weight to paragraphs 6, 7, 8 and 10 of Article 1147, Vernon’s Ann. P.C., which is the statute defining the offense of Aggravated Assault. Appellant takes the position that these provisions urged by him are to be construed as: “making an assault only an aggravated assault when a serious bodily injury is inflicted upon the person assaulted,” and “when committed with premeditated design, and by the use of means calculated to inflict great bodily injury”, and “when committed with (a knife or) deadly weapon under circumstances not amounting to an intent to murder or maim” ■—-that such is only aggravated assault.
It is obvious to us that there is no omission on our part in not considering the sections of this statute brought to our attention by appellant. Clearly, the aggravated assault statute has no application in fact situations such as presented in the case at bar. That statute specifically excludes from its terms acts which amount to an intent to murder or maim.
We did not belabor our original opinion by discussing the holdings of the various cases cited, and we shall not do so here.
We reiterate once more that there was competent medical testimony from Dr. Cig-arroa to the effect that such an instrument as the letter opener shown him may have caused the wound, and that a penetrating wound with such type of weapon can be calculated to produce death.
The early case of Franklin v. State, 37 Tex.Cr.R. 113, 38 S.W. 1016, opinion by the eminent Judge Henderson, seems to correctly set forth the rule in cases of assault with intent to murder. In that case the weapon used was a sound bois d’arc stick three or four feet long, and about one and *289a half inches in diameter. The prosecutor was struck on the back of the head with the stick and struck several additional blows. He was stunned and dazed from the blows and confined to his bed for several days. Judge Henderson, speaking for this Court, said: “In passing upon the intent of the party, the jury should look to the character of the weapon. If the weapon was a deadly weapon, and likely to produce great bodily harm, the jury may infer, from the use of such weapon, the intent to kill. If the weapon was not such a weapon, the jury may arrive at the intention of the party from the surrounding facts. If it was possible that death might have been inflicted by the weapon, and the defendant intended to take life, though the weapon was not a deadly weapon, still he might be guilty of an assault with intent to murder”.
We have carefully reconsidered the facts in the present case and weighed them against the holdings in the cases originally cited. We remain convinced that a correct disposition was made in our original opinion ; accordingly, appellant’s motion for rehearing is overruled.