Ex Parte McWilliams

Application of the carving doctrine by Texas courts for more than one hundred and five years now has provided a significant protection against the citizen being twice placed in jeopardy. Its brutal dispatch by a majority of my Brothers “got the blood of controversy in my neck,”1 and I must dissent.

In 1876 the Supreme Court of Texas found in Wilson v. State, 45 Tex. 76 (1876) that “the great weight of American authorities” supported the conclusion it was to reach. Included was an Indiana decision, Jackson v. The State, 14 Ind.R. 327, from which the Texas Supreme Court extracted the following:

“T…