Court Opinion

ID: 9771646
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 16:49:57.409246+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:34.446210
License: Public Domain

ON appellant’s motion for rehearing
WOODLEY, Judge.
Appellant complains that we overruled his formal Bill of Exception No. 2, addressed to the failure of the court to strike from the testimony of E. R. Davis the statement attributed to appellant in answer to Davis’ question as to whether he killed the deceased: “I don’t know, I aimed between his eyes.”
Appellant contends that the bill should be construed as showing that appellant was under arrest and as showing that .the statement was not admissible as res gestae. He relies upon Trollinger v. State, 153 Texas Cr. Rep. 364, 219 S.W. 2d 1018.
In Trollinger v. State this court said that it was quite evident that the deputy sheriff and the district attorney considered Trollinger to be under arrest. The officer testified that he would not have allowed Trollinger to go out of the jail or leave until he got hold of the district attorney and knew the facts of the case.
In the case now before us, the officer to whom the statement was made testified that appellant was not under arrest at the *287time, and there is nothing to dispute such testimony unless it be the statement of counsel “whether he had put him under arrest is not for him to state — when he came there to surrender he was under arrest.”
To this counsel for the state replied “May it please the court, we would say not only was he not under arrest yet, as Mr. Davis has testified, but also it would be in the nature of res gestae.”
The bill shows that the trial court first agreed with appellant’s counsel that appellant was under arrest, but after hearing all of the evidence on the matter agreed with the state that the evidence was admissible. The bill, however, does not reveal the basis for the court’s ruling, and as stated, the ground upon which appellant contended it was inadmissible does not appear.
A bill of exception complaining of the overruling of a motion to strike must show that the evidence was inadmissible and that the grounds upon which it was objected to were well founded. If the evidence might for some reason be admissible, the bill must specify the ground upon which the motion to exclude was based. 4 Texas Jur., Sec. 223, p. 327.
The bill does not appear to conform to such rule.
This court is not called upon to decide whether the evidence was admissible. It was incumbent upon appellant to show by his bill that appellant was under arrest, and that the declaration was not admissible as res gestae, neither being certified by the trial court.
We cannot construe this bill as certifying as a fact that appellant was under arrest, or thought he was when the statement was made, which appears to be necessary to such a bill. Whitfield v. State, 104 Texas Cr. Rep. 232, 283 S.W. 857; Adams v. State, 154 Texas Cr. Rep. 92, 221 S.W. 2d 265; Jordan v. State, 154 Texas Cr. Rep. 217, 226 S.W. 2d 449; Anderson v. State, 157 Texas Cr. Rep. 630, 252 S.W. 2d 189.
Appellant’s motion for rehearing is overruled.