Wells v. State

Citations

• 21 Tex. Ct. App. 594
• 2 S.W. 806
• 1886 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 196

Syllabus

<p>1. Practice—Recognizance.—A defendant’s recognizance given on appeal to this court can be forfeited only when the judgment against him below has been affirmed. A reversal of the judgment rendered below places the cause in the same condition it would be in if the new trial had been awarded by the trial court. Upon a reversal by this court the recognizance on appeal has served its purpose and become functus officio. The original recognizance or bail bond of the accused would in such case retain its full force and effect, and upon such obligation, and not upon his appeal bond or recognizance, the accused and his sureties would be bound.</p> <p>2. Same—Oases Obsolete.—It was the rule prior to the revision of the codes that a recognizance on appeal could be forfeited in the trial court after the reversal and remand of the case by the Appellate Court, and that doctrine was upheld in the cases of Weaver v. The State, 43 Texas, 386, and Riviere v. The State, 7 Texas Court of Appeals, 55. Those decisions have had no application to the question since the adoption of the Revised Code o£ Criminal Procedure, Article 876 of which enacted the rule as above stated.</p> <p>3. Same—Indictment.—The purported indictment in this ease being a presentation of a grand jury composed of thirteen persons was in fact no indictment at all, and conferred no jurisdiction upon the trial court or its officers to require a bail bond or recognizance of the defendant, and hence the recognizance and all other proceedings based upon the purported indictment were void. The rale that a surety npon a bail bond or recognizance will not be heard to question the sufficiency of an indictment after judgment nisi, can not be held to apply to a case in which there was in fact no indictment, and over which the trial court had not acquired jurisdiction.</p>