Davis v. State

• Decision Date: 10 June 1914
• Docket Number: (No. 3154.)
• Parties: DAVIS v. STATE.
• Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

167 S.W. 1108

DAVIS v. STATE.

(No. 3154.)

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.

June 10, 1914.

Rehearing Denied June 26, 1914.

Appeal from Hill County Court; J. D. Stephenson, Judge.

Adam Davis was convicted of slander, and appeals. Affirmed.

Wear & Frazier and V. L. Shurtleff, all of Hillsboro, and C. L. Black, of Austin, for appellant. C. E. Lane, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

HARPER, J.

Appellant was prosecuted and convicted of slander; the information alleging that appellant did unlawfully, orally, falsely, maliciously, and wantonly impute to one Mrs. Jessie Davis a want of chastity, in that in the presence and hearing of W. H. Landrum falsely, maliciously, and wantonly say that Mrs. Jessie Davis was four months gone, meaning thereby that she was pregnant with child and had been for a period of four months, and by the language so used to the said W. H. Landrum that Mrs. Davis was unchaste and was not virtuous prior to her marriage to appellant's son, and that she had had carnal intercourse with a male person while she was unmarried.

This is a misdemeanor conviction, and no bills of exception were reserved to the introduction of testimony, to the charge of the court, nor to the failure of the court to give those of the special charges which were refused, and under such circumstances no question is properly presented for review. Basquez v. State, 56 Tex. Cr. R. 329, 119 S. W. 861. Appellant says, however, that, taking the record as a whole, it does not show that the appellant has violated the laws of this state. The evidence shows that Ben Davis, a son of appellant, ran away with and married Jessie Landrum; that, after living with her about a month, he abandoned her, and she returned to the home of her father, W. H. Landrum. Landrum testifies that he then went to "appellant's house to see if he could not get the parties to go back together; that he asked him what was the matter, and he said, `Your daughter is four months gone.'" Appellant claims that, as Landrum went to see Davis and asked what caused the separation, Davis' answer would be privileged, regardless of what the answer might have been, and that no prosecution for slander could be based thereon. In this we do not think he is correct. The case he cites is where the slander was already in circulation, and the party goes to investigate the slander, and the person inquired of tells what he has heard, and that only, and of course, in that character of case, no action will lie. But in ...