Kunde v. State

Citations

• 22 Tex. Ct. App. 65
• 3 S.W. 325
• 1886 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 230

Syllabus

<p>1. Evidence—Motive—Indictment.—It is now well settled that an indictment against a defendant for an offense different from that for which he is on trial, maybe introduced in evidence against him if such indictment, in any degree, tends to show a motive on the part of the defendant to commit the offense for which he is on trial.</p> <p>2. Same—Case Stated—It is objected that the indictments introduced in evidence in this ease were not admissible for any purpose, because they were presented subsequent to the murder for which the defendant was on trial. But held that the objection is not good in this case, because the said indictments were connected by other testimony with transactions which occurred before the murder, and which tended to show a motive on the part of defendant to commit the murder. The reproduced testimony of a deceased justice of the peace disclosed prosecutions against the defendant and others for offenses against the property of the deceased shortly before the murder, in which prosecutions deceased was an important and indispensable witness. Held that, though meagre and indefinite, the reproduced testimony of the defunct justice of the peace was admissible to establish motive, and qualified the indictments as evidence to explain that the defendant was one of the parties charged with the offense against the property of the deceased.</p> <p>3. Same—Evidence.—Article 751 of the Code of Criminal Procedure reads as follows: “When part of an act, declaration, conversation or writing is given in evidence by one party, the whole on the same subject may be inquired into by the other; as when a letter is read, all other letters on the same subject between the same parties may be given. And when a detailed act, declaration, conversation or writing is given in evidence, any other act, declaration or writing which is necessary to make it fully understood, or to explain the same, may also be given in evidence.” That portion of the written testimony of the dece