Walker v. State

Citations

• 13 Tex. Ct. App. 618
• 1883 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 60

Syllabus

<p>1. Reasonable Doubt—Charge of the Court.—See statement of the case for an instruction upon the subject of reasonable doubt requested by the defendant, and held properly refused, under decisions of this court referred to in the opinion.</p> <p>2. Charge of the Court—Evidence—Practice.—A charge of the court which is, in effect, a philosophic disquisition upon the force and nature of a particular species of evidence, amounts to an invasion of the province of the jury, and is error. See the statement of the case for such a charge requested, and held properly refused. And see the same for evidence held admissible not only as dying declarations, but also as res gestae, and entitled to consideration as such.</p> <p>3. Practice—Verdict.—It is the duty of the trial court to refuse to receive a verdict which is manifestly informal and insufficient, and to call the attention of the jury to its defects, and to direct them as to its correction.</p> <p>4. Same.—Trial courts are authorized to receive verdicts on Sunday.</p> <p>5. Same.—Incorrect orthography or ungrammatical language will not vitiate a verdict.</p> <p>6. Same—Idem Sonans.—In applying the doctrine of idem sonans the rule is that if the words may be sounded alike, without doing violence to the power of the letters found in the variant orthography, then the words are idem sonans, and the variance is immaterial. Held, that, under this rule the words “mrder” and “murder” are idem sonans.</p> <p>7. Same.—The doctrine of idem sonans applies to and governs verdicts in the same manner and to the same extent that it does in other matters.</p> <p>8. Verdicts are to have a reasonable intendment and to receive a reasonable construction, and are not to be avoided unless from necessity originating1 in doubt of their import, or immateriality of the issue found, or their manifest tendency to work injustice, or their failure to contain that which some express provision of statute requires they should contain. The verdict in this