Court Opinion

ID: 9660937
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 22:24:31.642488+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:23.525599
License: Public Domain

ON APPELLANT’S MOTION FOR REHEARING
WOODLEY, Presiding Judge.
*350Appellant complains of our disposition of his contention that the trial court erred in overruling his motion to quash the indictment. He urges that there is quite a difference between the allegation that the deceased was killed by “striking him with some instrument and in a manner and means to the grand jury unknown” and the approved form of indictment alleging that the defendant killed the deceased in some manner and by some means, instrument or weapon to the grand jury unknown.
We have again examined the indictment, and the motion to quash, in the light of appellant’s motion for rehearing.
The first ground of the motion to quash reads: “The indictment is duplicitous in that same charges N. B. Gentry ‘did then and there unlawfully and willfully and voluntarily with malice aforethought kill H. A. Daniel by striking him with some instrument’ and in the same count charged the defendant ‘did then and there unlawfully and willfully and voluntarily with malice aforethought kill H. A. Daniel in a manner and means to the Grand Jury unknown’. ”
This appears to be a proper construction of the indictment, but we do not agree that the motion to quash should have been sustained.
An indictment for murder may, in a single count, allege jointly different means of killing without rendering the indictment duplicitous. Corona v. State, 108 Texas Cr. Rep. 317, 300 S.W. 79; Whiteside v. State, 111 Texas Cr. Rep. 116, 12 S.W. 2d 218; Stanley v. State, 120 Texas Cr. Rep. 450, 48 S.W. 2d 279; 29 Texas Jur. 2d, Homicide, Sec. 128, at p. 152.
We remain convinced that this appeal was properly disposed of on original submission.
Appellant’s motion for rehearing is overruled.