Aiken v. State
Aiken v. State
Opinion of the Court
On the 10th day of January, 1876, the indictment in this case was returned into court, charging appellant with the murder of one J. B. Scobee, in Milam county, on the 7 th day of May, 1874. He was brought to trial on the 17th day of May, 1881, and on the 21st a verdict was returned against him for murder in the second degree and affixing “his punishment at fifteen years in the penitentiary.”
An application for continuance was made by defendant,
• It is no longer a question in this State that flight and the attendant circumstances are legitimate matters for the consideration of the jury in connection with the other inculpatory evidence. Gose v. State, 6 Texas Ct. App. 121; Blake v. State, 3 Texas Ct. App. 581; 58 Ala. 335. The fact that defendant was arrested in Arkansas and brought back for trial brings the point directly within Blake’s case, supra. There was no error in permitting the introduction of the testimony.
Quité a number of objections are urged to the charge of the court, but upon a careful consideration we fail to see that they are tenable. Only one is deemed necessary of notice. It is said that the charge is insufficient in that it did not submit the law of negligent homicide. As shown by the evidence, the case was not and could not be one of negligent homicide, which can only be predicated upon facts showing “no apparent intention to kill.” Penal Code, art. 584; Robbins v. State, 9 Texas Ct. App. 666.
It is true that malice is the essential ingredient of murder, but the principle is elementary that “this specific malevolence towards the person killed may be embraced in such utter and reckless disregard of life as shows a man to be an enemy to all mankind; as when a man resolves to kill the next man he meets and does kill him; or shoots into a crowd wantonly, not knowing whom he may kill. 4 Black. Com. 200. In such a case it may well be said that he has malevolence towards the particular person killed, because he was one within the general scope of his malignity.” McCoy v. State, 25 Texas, 33; Lopez v. State, 2 Texas Ct. App. 204.
Appellant, according to the evidence, fired his pistol into the window of a passenger car of a railroad train in which, it is also shown, he must have known and did know there were passengers. Deceased was struck in the neck by the ball, and died in a day or two thereafter from the effects. A more reckless disregard of human life was never shown and can scarcely be imagined, and the dastardly act under the circumstances developed is and could be in law nothing short of murder. We have found no error in the proceedings which resulted in his conviction of murder of the second degree; and the judgment assessing his punishment at fifteen years’ imprisonment in the State penitentiary is in all things affirmed.
Affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.