Case ID: tex-crim_56/html/0199-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "DAVIDSON, Presiding Judge. RAMSEY, Judge", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

John Adams v. The State.
    No. 4115.
    Decided May 12, 1909.
    Abandonment—Failing to Support Minor Child—Constitutional law.
    The Act of the Thirtieth Legislature p. 133, making it an offense to abandon the wife and children and fail to support the minor child, is unconstitutional. Ramsey, Judge, dissenting.
    Appeal from the County Court of San Saba. Tried below before the Hon. J. T. Hartley.
    Appeal from a conviction of failing to provide for minor child, etc., under Act of the Thirtieth Legislature, p. 133; penalty, a fine of $100.
    The opinion states the case.
    
      
      G. A. Waters and Leigh Burleson, for appellant.
    
      F. J. McCord, Assistant Attorney-General, and Matt F. Alleson, for the State.
    Counsel claimed that that part of the Act of the Thirtieth Legislature providing for the abandonment of minor children under the age of twelve years, etc., was legally severable siduum of said act: Article 3, section 35, Constitution of Texas; Roddy v. State, 16 Texas Crim. App., 502; Albrecht v. State, 8 Texas Crim. App., 216; Galveston, etc., Railway v. Grass, 47 Texas, 436; W. U. Tel. Co. v. State, 62 Texas, 630; Pollock v. Farmers Loan and Trust Co., 158 U. S., 601; Bishop under written laws, ch. 5, section 34.
   DAVIDSON, Presiding Judge.

This conviction was had under the Act of the Thirtieth Legislature, page 133. The charge in this case was for failure to support the minor child. The provision with regard to this phase of the law is the same in regard to the abandonment of the wife insofar as the question involved the validity of the statute. For the reasons stated in Ex parte Smythe and Burch v. State, this day decided, the judgment in this case is reversed and the prosecution ordered dismissed.

Dismissed,.

RAMSEY, Judge

(dissenting).—Unless the judgment in this case can be reformed, I think the case should be reversed and the cause remanded. I do not agree, however, to the conclusion that the law is unconstitutional insofar as it defines the offense and fixes the penalty. I think, as to the mere matter of collection of a fine, if this should fail, that it ought not to carry the law down with it. I have written my views at some length in the case of Ex parte Frank A. Smythe, this day decided, to which I respectfully refer the interested reader.