Court Opinion

ID: 9675125
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:42:42.328953+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:31.660861
License: Public Domain

DAVIDSON, Judge,
(concurring).
I concur in the opinion reversing this conviction.
However, in my opinion there is another and additional reason reflected by this record for which I would reverse. As to that error I call attention to the following:
Appellant requested the trial court to give to the jury the following special instruction:
“. . . . if you should find and believe from the evidence or have a reasonable doubt therefrom, that Winona Fine Lee — on or about the 3rd day of November, 1958 — did shoot and kill William F. Fulton with a gun, you should acquit the Defendant, Lawrence W. Thrash, and so say by your verdict of ‘not guilty.’ ”
*102That charge was refused and in lieu thereof the trial court gave the following instruction:
“You are further charged that if you should find and believe from the evidence that on or about the 3rd day of November, 1958 — Winona Fine Lee or Beverly Jo [sic] Thrash did shoot and kill William F. Fulton in Dallas County, Texas, with a gun and you should further find and believe from the evidence, or have a reasonable doubt thereof, that the defendant, Lawrence W. Thrash, did not by act, word, or gesture, encourage the said Winona Fine Lee, or Beverly Jo Thrash, in the commission of said offense, if any, although physically present at the scene, if he was, you will acquit the defendant and say by your verdict, ‘not guilty.’ ”
In effect, that charge was that if Winona Fine Lee killed the deceased appellant would nevertheless be guilty, unless the jury also believed that the appellant “did not by act, word, or gesture, encourage” Winona Fine Lee in killing the deceased.
Such charge clearly shifted the burden of proof to the appellant to establish his innocence or the fact that he did not act with Winona Fine Lee in the killing.
If Winona Fine Lee killed the deceased, appellant was entitled to have the jury instructed to acquit him unless the evidence showed, beyond a reasonable doubt, that he (appellant) was connected, under the law of principals, with the killing committed by her.
There was not the least suggestion in the evidence that if Winona Fine Lee killed the deceased appellant aided her as a principal in the commission of that crime.
When the trial court gave the instruction he did, he recognized that the evidence raised the issue that Winona Fine Lee killed the deceased.
In this connection, I call attention to the fact that Winona Fine Lee testified that she admitted to the arresting officers that she killed the deceased. According to her testimony, she was present when the killing took place. She had a motive for the killing, because three weeks prior thereto deceased had assaulted and beaten her to the point that she was confined in a hospital *103for four days, according to her testimony. A gun which could have been the murder weapon was found in her apartment in a closet.
In addition to all these facts, the state’s case against the appellant was circumstantial and based upon circumstantial evidence. The trial court so instructed the jury in his charge.
Moreover, if the testimony of the accomplice Winona Lee be taken from consideration, about all there is left is testimony showing that a shot was heard, a man was seen to slump, and some time thereafter the body of the deceased was found at another and different place from the scene of the shooting.
That appellant was entitled to the charge requested appears definite. Branch’s P. C., 2d Edition, Vol. 4, p. 608, Secs. 2246 and 2247.