63 S.W. 642 | Tex. Crim. App. | 1901
Appellant was convicted of perjury, and his punishment assessed at two years confinement in the penitentiary; hence this appeal.
The indictment is in the ordinary form, charging the perjury as being committed by appellant on a trial of himself in the District Court of Falls County on a charge of assault with intent to murder one T.J. Kemper. Appellant insists that the indictment is defective, because it fails to show how the alleged predicate for perjury was or became material. The indictment, after setting out the court, etc., in which the perjury is alleged to have been committed, alleges that Jim Henry, defendant, was then and there, etc., duly charged by indictment with having in the county of Falls and the State of Texas, on the 20th day of February, 1898, with malice aforethought, made an assault in and upon T.J. Kemper, with the intent then and there to murder the said T.J. Kemper; and then charges that in the trial of said case it then and there became and was a material inquiry by said judge and jury whether the said Jim Henry, had, in the county of Falls and State of Texas, on the 20th day of February, 1898, given Felix Chapman a stick with which he, the said Chapman, struck and hit one T.J. Kemper; and then charges that defendant falsely testified that he (Jim Henry) did not, in the *177
county of Falls and State of Texas, on the 20th of February, 1898, give the said Felix Chapman a stick with which he hit and struck the said T.J. Kemper; and then alleges that said statement was then and there material to the issues in said case, and then traverses the truth of the same. It will be observed that this indictment alleges both the materiality of the matter as an issue in the trial of said case, and then charges that the testimony given upon said issue was material. Of course, it will not be gainsaid at this day that the matter on which the perjury is predicated can simply be alleged as material without stating the environments showing on the face of the indictment how the same came to be material. Either form of pleading will do. In this case the pleader alleged the materiality of the false testimony. Massie v. State, 5 Texas Crim. App., 81; Mattingly v. State, 8 Texas Crim. App., 345; Washington v. State, 22 Texas Crim. App., 26; Rahm v. State, 30 Texas Crim. App., 310; Martin v. State,
Affirmed.