Alford v. State

• Decision Date: 26 July 1918
• Citation: 79 So. 437,76 Fla. 122
• Parties: ALFORD et al. v. STATE.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

79 So. 437

76 Fla. 122

ALFORD et al. v. STATE.

Florida Supreme Court

July 26, 1918

Error to Circuit Court, De Soto County; John S. Edwards, Judge.

L. T Alford and Sallie Browning were convicted of crime, and bring error. Affirmed.

Syllabus by the Court

SYLLABUS

In a prosecution against a man and a woman for living in an open state of adultery, proof that one of the parties so living is married is sufficient to establish the guilt of both.

When a man and a woman, who are not married to each other, occupy a small house together, sleeping in the same room and in the same bed, and who continue such relations for a month, and there is evidence showing illicit connection between them and one of the parties is married, such facts are deemed sufficient to establish their guilt upon an indictment charging them with living in an open state of adultery.

COUNSEL Timberlake & Robbins, of Arcadia, for plaintiffs in error.

Van C Swearingen, Atty. Gen., and C. O. Andrews, Asst. Atty. Gen for the State.

OPINION

ELLIS, J.

The plaintiffs in error were indicted and convicted for living together in an open state of adultery. They seek here to reverse the judgment upon the ground that the evidence adduced at the trial was not sufficient to support the verdict.

The section of the General Statutes of Florida which denounces the offense of adultery provides that, if either of the parties living in an open state of adultery is married, both parties so living shall be deemed to be guilty of the offense of living in an open state of adultery. Section 3518, Gen. Stats. 1906, Compl. Laws 1914.

We think there was sufficient evidence to support the verdict although the adulterous cohabitation of the parties was not established by positive or direct testimony. Without undertaking to review in detail the evidence that was before the jury, it tended to show that the parties occupied together a small house in Arcadia. The man went to the house at night and left in the morning. He did this continuously for a month or longer. He slept at the house, and, when he was arrested at about 11 o'clock one night, he was occupying a bed in one room which had the appearance of having been occupied that night by two people. In the adjoining room through an open door the woman was seen apparently asleep upon a bed into which she had seemingly made a hasty retirement. The evidence of her precipitous exit from the room of...