Pocket v. State

Citations

• 5 Tex. Ct. App. 552

Syllabus

<p>1. Special Venire—Practice. — There is in this State no provision of statute or rule of practice which requires the presence of the defendant or his counsel, in a criminal case, at the drawing of a special venire.</p> <p>2. Same — Case Stated.—In a murder trial, the jurymen were drawn by a* deputy-sheriff from an ordinary cigar-box, with a lid on the side, but not ai sliding lid, and the names so drawn were simply recorded by the clerk. Held, that section 21 of the jury-law (Acts Fifteenth Legislature, 82)i applies more particularly to the organization of juries for the regular weekly panels, and that another and different box than one with a sliding-lid may be used in drawing the jury under a special venire. The objection that the clerk did not actually and in person, with his own hand, draw the-jurors, is purely technical; and against such objection this court will sustain the judgment by purely technical .reasons, when the appellant could have suffered no injury. See the opinion in extenso, for treatment of these-questions, holding that under the proceeding in this case the objections are-trivial.</p> <p>3. Evidence — Confessions made freely, without compulsion or persuasion, are entirely competent, and may, as in the present case, serve both as ai confession of guilt and as evidence of the animus with which the act was done.</p> <p>4. Same. — Confessions of a defendant after arrest, he being duly warned beforehand that his statements might be used against him, are admissible in evidence against him.</p> <p>5. Charge of the Court.—Though requested charges be unnecessary, they may be sometimes given with propriety; but it is not error in the court, below to refuse them when the law applicable to the case is correctly set. forth in the general charge.</p> <p>6. Same.—The court below is not required to repeat, upon request, charges substantially embodied in the general charge, or to charge upon a state of facts which does not exist; but, in the event of a reasona