Case ID: tex-crim_56/html/0220-01.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

D. Phillips v. The State.
    No. 4076.
    Decided May 12, 1909.
    Wife Abandonment—Constitutional Law.
    The Act of the Thirtieth Legislature p. 133 authorizing the punishment of the husband who deserts his wife for reasons stated in said act is unconstitutional. Ramsey, Judge, dissenting.
    Appeal from the County Court of Haskell. Tried below before the Hon. Joe Irby.
    Appeal from a conviction of wife abandonment; penalty, a fine of $500 and one year confinement in the county jail.
    The opinion states the case.
    No brief on file for appellant.
    
      F. J. McCord, Assistant Attorney-General, for the State.
   DAVIDSON, Presiding Judge.

This prosecution was had under the Act of the Thirtieth Legislature, page 133, authorizing the punishment of a husband who deserts his wife for reasons stated in the Act. Under the decision of Ex parte Smythe and Burch v. State, this day decided, holding the law unconstitutional, the judgment in this case is set aside and the prosecution is 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.