293 S.W. 1110 | Tex. Crim. App. | 1927
Conviction is for driving a motor vehicle on a public road while appellant was intoxicated, punishment being one year in the penitentiary.
The evidence was conflicting upon the issue of appellant's condition while driving the automobile, but is sufficient to support the verdict.
After the jury had been out about twenty minutes the trial *505 judge called another case and finding that he did not have enough jurors to proceed with the trial, directed the sheriff to go to the jury room and ask the jury what was the prospect for a verdict, or how long before they would report. Appellant objected to the court sending the message on the ground that it was an interference with the jury in their deliberations, and because it would probably have the effect of forcing a verdict. The sheriff delivered the judge's message and upon his return reported that the jury said, "Ask the judge to give us a few minutes." The bill states that "shortly thereafter" the jury returned their verdict and that appellant excepted to the action of the court in "communicating with the jury without bringing them into open court because his action in effect forced a verdict against the defendant." In briefing the point the appellant insists that the action of the court was in violation of Art. 671, C. C. P., which is:
"No person shall be permitted to be with a jury while they are deliberating upon a case, nor be permitted to converse with a juror after he has been impaneled, except in the presence and by the permission of the court, or except in a case of misdemeanor where the jury have been permitted by the court to separate. No person shall be permitted to converse with the juror about the case on trial."
Appellant is insisting on a construction of the statute which would give it such application as not heretofore invoked. The cases cited by him, among them being Mauney v. State,
The judgment is affirmed.
Affirmed.