Case ID: sw_178/html/0334-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "PRENDERGAST, P. J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

DOOMS v. STATE.
    (No. 3615.)
    (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.
    June 16, 1915.)
    Criminal Law <§=507 — “Accomplice” — Who is.
    A prostitute, who came to a hotel with a man as her husband and so registered, and who remained after he left, and who then employed for a money consideration a porter in the hotel to locate men in the hotel with whom she could have sexual intercourse, and who located men and directed them to her room, was an accomplice of the porter, indicted for alluring a female to visit a room for immoral purposes, in violation of Pen. Code 1911, art. 498.
    [Ed. Note. — For other cases, see Criminal Law, Cent. Dig. §§ 1082-1096; Dec. Dig. <§= 507.
    For other definitions, see Words and Phrases, First and Second Series, Accomplice.]
    Appeal from Harris County Court at Law; C. C. Wren, Judge.
    Joe Dooms was convicted of crime, and lie appeals.
    Reversed and remanded.
    Guynes & Colgin, of Houston, for appellant. C. C. McDonald, Asst. Atty. Gen., ifor the State.
   PRENDERGAST, P. J.

Appellant was convicted, in that he “did unlawfully invite, solicit, procure, and allure Grace Johnson, a female to visit and be at a room in the Mecca Hotel, in the city of Houston, for the purpose of meeting and having unlawful sexual intercourse with a male person,” under Article 498, P. C.

The testimony of Grace Johnson, upon which the state solely relied for a conviction, showed: That she was a common prostitute, and frequented the hotels in Houston to ply her vocation. The hotels did not know her, nor know she thus worked their hotels. That she went to the Mecca with a man as her husband, and so registered, and stayed one night with him. He left next morning. She remained. She then employed appellant, a bell boy and porter in the Mecca, “to make dates for her” — that is, seek and locate men in the hotel with whom she could have unlawful sexual intercourse. She paid him for this. What he did was to thus locate men who were willing to accept her “services,” and then tell her the room they occupied, and she would then go there and have such intercourse. Such men would be utter strangers to her. She, on this occasion, fulfilled one of her engagements thus made by appellant for her and at her special instance.

We think this made her an accomplice., The court refused to so charge the jury. In this the court erred, for which the judgment must be reversed. See Bill Denman v. State, 177 S. W. 120, this day decided in an opinion by Judge Harper; also a case by the same appellant, 178 S. W. 332, in an opinion by Judge Davidson.

Reversed and remanded.