Dawson v. State

Citations

• 33 Tex. 491

Syllabus

<p>1. An indictment is good, notwithstanding it be characterized by awkward use of language and clumsy construction of sentences, provided the offense is charged in plain and intelligible words.</p> <p>2. The ruling in Johnson v. The State, (27 Texas, 758,) cited and approved, to the effect that in charging a jury in a ease of felony, it is only necessary for the court to give such instructions as are applicable to every legitimate deduction which the jury may draw from the evidence.</p> <p>3. The rulings on the subject of threats, in Pridgen v. The State, (31 Texas, 420,) are hereby expressly denied and overruled ; and this court now reaffirms the rule expounded in Johnson v. The State, viz.: When a party who has taken the life of another relies upon threats against his own life, as an element in his defense, he must show that at the time of the ¡killing some act was done by the deceased from which he, the accused, night reasonably inferan intention of immediately carrying such threats into effect; in which case the accused was justified in the use of such means as were within his power for his own defense, and if death ensued thereby the homicide was justifiable.</p> <p>4. The present Constitution of this State, article 5, section eight, empowers the jury, in a capital case, to substitute imprisonment at hard labor for life, in lieu of the penalty of death. Held, that this provision is neither .a repeal nor an amelioration of former laws inflicting death as the penalty, inasmuch as the penalty of death may still be legally infiicted ; and the only effect imputable to this provision of the Constitution is to vest in the jury the power of commuting the punishment.</p> <p>5. In an indictment for murder, the name of the party killed was wiitten “ Woodlin,” but in other parts of the transcript it is variously written “ Woodin,” “ Woodine,” “ Woodlow ” and ‘‘ Woodland.” But there is to be found in the transcript no indication whatever of any controvei'sy or guestion in