Case Name: L. B. McClanahan v. The State
Court: Texas Courts of Appeals
Jurisdiction: Texas
Decision Date: 1886-06-02
Citations: 21 Tex. Ct. App. 429
Docket Number: No. 3704
Parties: L. B. McClanahan v. The State.
Judges: 
Reporter: Texas Court of Appeals Reports
Volume: 21
Pages: 429–430

Head Matter:
[No. 3704.]
L. B. McClanahan v. The State.
Obstructing Public Road, Etc.—Information—Article 405 of the Penal Code provides as follows: “ If any person shall wilfully obstruct or injure, or cause to be obstructed or injured, in any manner whatsoever, any public road or highway, or any street or alley in any incorporated town or city, or any public bridge or causeway, he sháll be ñned,” etc. Held that the offense denounced by the said article is the obstruction of any public road or highway, or any street or alley in any incorporated town or city, and that it does not embrace the obstruction of any road other than & public road, or street or alley in an unincorporated town or city. The information in this case, alleging the obstruction of a “certain road in the unincorporated town of Glen Rose,” charges no offense against the laws of this State.
Appeal from the County Court of Somervell. Tried below before the Hon. A. J. Hart, County Judge.
This conviction was for obstructing a certain road, and the penalty imposed was a fine of one dollar.
The case is disclosed in the opinion.
Cooper & Estes, for the appellant.
J. H. Burts, Assistant Attorney General, for the State.

Opinion:
White, Presiding Judge.
Our penal statute with regard to the obstruction of roads, streets, and bridges, reads as follows: " If any person shall wilfully obstruct or injure, or cause to be obstructed or injured, in any manner whatsoever, any public road or highway, or any street or alley in any incorporated town or city, or any public bridge or causeway, he shall be fined in a sum not exceeding five hundred dollars,"
The offense denounced is the obstruction of any public road or highway, or any street or alley in any incorporated town or city. It is no offense to obstruct a road which is not a public road, nor is it any offense to obstruct a street or alley in an unincorporated town or city.
The information in this case is fatally defective as an information for obstructing a road, because it does not allege that the road obstructed was a public road, and it is not good as a charge for obstructing a street or alley in a town or city, because it does allege that the town was incorporated. On the contrary, the allegation is that the defendant '1 did, at the county aforesaid, on the twenty-second day of July, 1885, and at divers other times at said place, wilfully obstruct a certain road in the unincorporated town of Glen Rose, in the county and State aforesaid, by building a fence across and over the said road."
Opinion delivered June 2, 1886.
This information states no offense against the law, and defendant's motion to quash the same should have been, sustained.
Because the information is fatally defective, the judgment is reversed and the prosecution is dismissed.
Reversed and dismissed.