Case ID: ga-app_36/html/0630-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Broyles, C. J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

17859.
    Smith v. The State.
    Decided April 12, 1927.
    Keeping lewd house; from Warren superior court — Judge Perryman. December 15, 1926.
    Mrs. Smith was convicted of keeping a lewd house. From the evidence it appeared that she and her unmarried daughter and a married couple lived in the same house in Warrenton. A witness testified that he lived within a hundred yards of her a little more than three months, and that a married man named Cason frequented the house, going there morning, evening, and night, and often staying ás much as two hours during his morning and evening visits; that he had seen Cason carry ice, milk, roasting ears, and other things there in a car, and that the general opinion in the community was that the house was a place where “illicit relation between man and woman was practiced.” Another witness testified: “As to the general reputation of Mrs. Smith’s house, I have heard no talk except about Mr. Cason going there; there is a general reputation in that community that Mr. Cason goes there for the purpose of illicit relations.” ' Other neighbors testified as to Cason’s visits and the reputation of the house, some that they did not know of its having a bad reputation. The defendant, in her statement at the trial, denied that there was improper conduct in the house, and said that she had been buying milk from' Cason for several years, that he sometimes brought ice to her, coming after dark when it was not convenient to come in the daytime; that his family and hers had been intimate as far back as she could remember; that his grandfather had been administrator on her grandfather’s estate, and his father had protected her mother in several litigations growing out of the estate, and that she and her daughter occupied the same room and slept in the same bed.
    
      Criminal Law, 16 O. J. p. 764, n. 54; p. 1179, n. 67; 17 G. J. p. 252, n. 16.
    Disorderly Houses, 18 O. J. p. 1227, n. 2.
   Broyles, C. J.

The evidence relied on for a conviction in this ease was wholly circumstantial, and was not sufficient to exclude every reasonable hypothesis except that of the guilt of the accused. It follows that the refusal to 'grant a new trial was error.

Judgment reversed.

Luke and Bloodworth, JJ., concur.

F. P. & J. Cecil Davis, for plaintiff in error.

M. L. Felts, solicitor-general, contra.