Court Opinion

ID: 9767716
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 05:24:04.800929+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:32.586627
License: Public Domain

ON state’s motion for rehearing
MORRISON, Presiding Judge.
In an able motion, the State, through the district attorney of Travis County, has attacked each ground upon which our original opinion reversed this conviction.
The crux of the state’s position is its contention that “while the general rule is that the best evidence by which a fact can be proved must be produced or its absence accounted for, before secondary or inferior evidence is admissible, a well-established exception to this general rule is that the official character of an' alleged public officer need not be proved by the commission or other written evidence of the right of such officer to act as such, except in an issue directly between the officer and the public.” The state relies upon Woodson v. State, 24 Texas Cr. *362Rep. 153, 6 S.W. 184, and the cases which follow the rule therein announced.
An analysis of the Woodson case demonstrates that the exception to the rule is based upon public convenience and the presumption that public officers have performed their duty and have acted in a regular and lawful manner and have not exceeded their lawful authority. It is only, until the contrary is shown, that the law presumes that a public officer acted within his power and authority. 17 Texas Juris., sec. 76 p. 277.
In other words, the state is here seeking to invoke this presumption which arises as an exception to the best evidence rule when the basis for the presumption does not exist. This is so because Doris Say les, who gave the oral testimony in this case upon which the state seeks to rely to show her official capacity, also admitted that she had violated the law in the performance of the duties of her office if, in fact, she was a notary public.
The law indulges in no presumptions and makes no exceptions in the rules of evidence to support the official status of one who admittedly violates the law in the performance of his duties. For when it is shown that the official violated the duties of his office, then the issue between “the officer and the public” arises.
In addition to what we have just said, we observe that Doris Sayles’ status as a notary was not a collateral issue which needed no corroboration but was, in the words of Judge Henderson in Locklin v. State, 75 S.W. 305, “the main fact” to be proven.
Article 1010, V.A.P.C., if it is a valid statute, has no application here because it requires first that an offense be shown and that the accused take some step or do any one act or thing in the commission of the offense. Unless and until it was established here that the certificate was a forgery, no offense had been committed. The forgery and the offense in the case at bar are shown only by the uncorroborated testimony of the accomplice and are therefore not shown at all.
Our disposition of this contention renders unnecessary consideration of the other questions raised.
Remaining convinced that we properly disposed of this cause originally, the staté’s motion for rehearing is overruled.