# Burns v. State

> Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas · May 3, 1977 · 556 S.W.2d 270

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9684253

## Case

- **Full name:** James Paul BURNS, Appellant, v. the STATE of Texas, Appellee
- **Court:** Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas
- **Decided:** May 3, 1977
- **Citations:** 556 S.W.2d 270; 1977 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 1104
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by Roberts
- **Judges:** Davis, Roberts, Phillips
- **Cited by:** 143 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9684253

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that the prosecutor’s reference to the defendant as an “animal” was not an improper deduction from the evidence because the defendant had brutally tortured and murdered a 58-year-old man
- holding that a reference to the accused as an animal is not improper when the defendant had brutally tortured and murdered a 58-year-old man
- finding that prosecutor's reference to defendant as an "animal" was not improper because "the record . . . reflects a 'bestial aspect.'"
- holding that reference to defendant being an "animal" "was warranted" and was "not an improper deduction from the evidence"
- finding no error where the defendant was described as a “moral vacuum”

## Opinion text

ROBERTS, Judge,
dissenting.
For the reasons stated in Part I of my dissenting opinion in Shippy v. State, Tex. *287 Cr.App., 556 S.W.2d 246 (delivered April 27, 1977), I dissent to the majority’s disposition of appellant’s grounds of error relating to the trial court’s violation of the mandate of Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U.S. 510 , 88 S.Ct. 1770 , 20 L.Ed.2d 776 (1968), and in particular, appellant’s complaint of the erroneous exclusion of prospective juror Tillman.
PHILLIPS, J., joins in this dissent.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9684253. Public record. Not legal advice.