Sullivan v. State

Citations

• 13 Tex. Ct. App. 462
• 1883 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 29

Syllabus

<p>1. Burglary—Case Overruled.—Indictment for burglary which properly alleges that the accused “did break and enter ” the house, need not allege the want of the owner’s consent. Brown v. The State, 7 Texas Court of Appeals, in so far as it announces the contrary doctrine, is hereby overruled. See the opinion in extenso on the subject.</p> <p>2. Same.-—The code has so far extended the law of burglary as to include theft, whether felony or misdemeanor, and it is therefore unnecessary that an indictment for burglary should allege the value of the property intended to be stolen.</p> <p>3. Same.—Indictment for burglary sufficiently describes the house if it defines it as a “certain house then and there occupied and controlled by” a named person.</p> <p>4. Same.—Allegation in an indictment for burglary that the goods were 1 ‘ then and there being found” sufficiently charges that, the goods intended to be stolen were in the house entered.</p> <p>5. Same.—The charging part of the indictment is that the defendant “a certain house, etc., feloniously, fraudulently and burglariously did break and enter.” Held, that the words “ burglariously ” and “feloniously” being no part of the statutory definition of the offense, the word “fraudulently” is the only qualifying term, and qualifies the word “ enter” as well as “break.” And held further, that such indictment is not sufficient to charge an entry “by fraud,” and is sufficient only to charge an entry by force. See the opinion in extenso for an elaboration of the ruling.</p> <p>0. Same— Practice— Evidence.—Indictment for burglary may properly charge the entry to have been effected by force, threats or fraud, or in but one of these means. Both the evidence and the charge of the court must be confined to the means of entry properly alleged. In this case the indictment was sufficient only to charge an entry by force, and, however much the evidence may have tended to prove an entry by other means, it was error to charge on such other m