Baker v. State

Citations

• 4 Tex. Ct. App. 223

Syllabus

<p>1. New Trial. — That the person who acted as bailiff of the petit jury was not a sworn officer, and was a relation of the deceased for whose murder the defendant was on trial, is not ground for a new trial when no exception was taken to him at the proper time, and when it does not appear that any right of the defendant was prejudiced.</p> <p>2. Jury Law. — The act of 1876 provides that tales jurors shall not be summoned from persons found in the court-house or yard, if procurable elsewhere. This provision does not apply to persons found in houses fronting on the court-house square.</p> <p>3. New Trial—Disqualification of Juror. — That a juror was related to the deceased for whose murder the defendant is on trial is not cause for new trial, when proper inquiry was not made on the voire dire of the juror, nor any diligence used to discover the relationship before he was impaneled.</p> <p>4. Political Controversy should never be allowed to enter into a judicial investigation; but if introduced by a party, he cannot complain of a reply of the same character.</p> <p>5. Murder—Charge of the Court.—A defendant having, on a former trial for murder, been convicted in the second degree, and thus acquitted of the first degree, it was not incumbent on the court, at a subsequent trial, to give in charge to the jury a definition of express malice, or otherwise instruct them on the law of murder of the first degree.</p> <p>6. Same. —A defendant on trial for murder of the second degree is not entitled to an acquittal because the evidence against him would sustain a conviction for the first degree.</p>