Court Opinion

ID: 9775096
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 18:43:46.876717+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:20.447349
License: Public Domain

ON MOTION FOR REHEARING.
MORRISON, Judge.
Appellant takes us to task for failing to set out in our original opinion that portion of his Bill of Exception No. 1 which he contends constituted a certificate of error by the trial court. The bill contains the recitation that by the asking of the question (set out in the original opinion), “the State’s attorney thereby got before the jury by implication that officer Howe did have such an intoximeter test in his possession and that such intoximeter equipment was available, and the resulting implication that the appellant had refused such test.” Appellant contends that the court did not specifically negative this recitation in his qualification of the bill. The recitation quoted above, upon which appellant relies, is no more than a conclusion drawn from the fact that the question was asked. We will be bound only by certificates from the trial court as to facts. The question was asked. This fact is certified in the bill and is binding on this court. The trial judge’s conclusion as to the “resulting implication” is not binding on this Court. The facts are before us as they were before the trial judge. We alone reserve the right to pass upon what effect those facts had upon the trial of the accused. Our conclusion is that the asking of the question did not tell the jury that appellant had refused to take the intoximeter test.
As to the second bill of exception discussed in our original opinion, the trial court declined to certify that the question propounded to appellant on cross-examination as to whether he had ever been in trouble in Houston was a deliberate attempt by the assistant district attorney to prejudice the appellant. The ultimate question for us to decide is not what the district attorney knew or designed, but whether or not what actually transpired before the jury may have caused injury to the appellant. As soon as the answer showed that the matter was too remote, appellant’s objection was sustained, and no further inquiry was attempted or permitted about the same. In the light of the qualifications, the asking of the question to which objection was sustained does not call for reversal.
In bill of exception No. 6, the appellant complains of argu*632ment of the prosecutor, to which objection was sustained and which was withdrawn from the jury’s consideration. Appellant contends that the trial court certified error because of the recitation in the bill that the argument injected new and unsworn testimony before the jury. We have read the record carefully and do not agree with such conclusion of the trial judge and decline to be bound thereby.
Remaining convinced that we properly disposed of this cause originally, the appellant’s motion for rehearing is overruled.