Case ID: sw_206/html/0523-03.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "PRENDERGAST, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

REUM v. STATE.
    (No. 5183.)
    (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.
    Nov. 13, 1918.)
    1. Indictment and Information <&wkey;125(36) — Conjunctive Charges — Unlawfully Practicing Medicine.
    Complaint and information for unlawfully practicing medicine, preferred under Pen. Code 1911, arts. 750, 755, averring conjunctively several matters in articles defining offense, and following substantially an approved form, were sufficient. ■
    2. Physicians and Surgeons <&wkey;6(10) — Unlawful Practice — Prosecution — Evidence.
    In prosecution, under Pen. Code 1911, arts. 750, 755, for unlawfully practicing medicine, court properly excluded testimony of district clerk, offered by defendant, and record, in his office in register of physicians and surgeons, showing entries previously made under old law, then in force, but since repealed.
    
      3. Physicians and Surgeons &wkey;6(10) — Unlawful Practice — Evidence.
    In prosecution for unlawfully practicing medicine, it devolves on state to prove defendant did not have license or diploma, with verification, and did not have it registered.
    Appeal from El Paso County Court at Law; Will P. Brady, Judge.
    Anna Reum was convicted of unlawfully practicing medicine, and she appeals.
    Reversed and remanded.
    M. W. Stanton and Jackson & Isaaeks, all of El Paso, for appellant.
    B. B. ‘Hendricks, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
   PRENDERGAST, J.

Appellant was convicted of unlawfully practicing medicine, a misdemeanor.

The complaint and information were in three counts. The state elected to prosecute, and did prosecute, under the third only. The complaint and information were preferred under articles 750 and 755, Pen. Code 1911, which prescribe the offense. They aver con-junctively several matters in said articles defining the offense, and .they follow substantially, if not literally, the approved form of Willson, Texas Crim. Forms (4th Ed.) No. 343, and were clearly sufficient. In misdemeanors especially it has uniformly been held by this court that, where several ways by which an offense may be committed are prescribed in the same statute, and are embraced in the same general definition and punished in the same manner and to the same extent, and not repugnant to each other, they may be charged conjunctively in the same count in an information. 'See authorities collated" in 1 .Branch’s Ann. P. C. § 508. Said pleadings are therefore valid against appellant’s objections thereto.

The court did not err in excluding the testimony of the district clerk, offered by appellant, and the record in his office in the register of physicians and surgeons showing certaih entries made in February, 1900, under an old law that was then in force. The law under which those entries were made has long since been repealed, and the statute under which this prosecution was based prescribes an entirely different record and registration. Gay v. State, 79 Tex. Cr. R. 305, 184 S. W. 200.

The court in his charge told the jury:

“In this case it does not devolve upon the state to prove that defendant did not have a license or diploma, with verification of same, and did not have same registered.”

The appellant duly excepted to this charge, specifically pointing out the error in giving it. This was doubtless the view the trial judge had of the law on this point, and the prosecution thereupon introduced no proof at all showing or tending to show that appellant had not registered in the district clerk’s office, as required by the statute, her authority to practice medicine. Under the recent and latest decision of this court this was error (Denton v. State, 20(1 S. W. 183), and for this error the case must be reversed.

No statement or discussion is necessary of other claimed errors by appellant, as none of them present reversible error. .

Reversed and remanded. 
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