Hall v. State

• Decision Date: 06 February 1894
• Citation: 14 So. 867,100 Ala. 86
• Parties: HALL v. STATE.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

14 So. 867

100 Ala. 86

HALL v. STATE.

Supreme Court of Alabama

February 6, 1894

Appeal from circuit court, Coffee county; J. M. Carmichael, Judge.

Charley Hall was convicted of abandoning his family, and appeals. Affirmed.

The evidence showed the marriage between the defendant and his wife occurred on September 3, 1888, and they lived together until December 1, 1889, when the defendant separated from his wife, leaving her nothing but household and kitchen furniture, and that at the time of the abandonment of his wife the defendant was an able-bodied young man. The defendant offered to prove by the records that on August 13 1890, he filed a bill in the chancery court of Coffee county for a divorce, and that a decree of divorce was duly rendered in said cause on the fourth Monday in October, 1890. The state objected to the introduction of this proof, which objection the court sustained, and the defendant duly excepted. On the examination of one of the state's witnesses, the defendant, on cross-examination, asked the witness, if defendant's wife did not, about 13 months after he separated from her, have another bastard child? The state objected to the question, the court sustained the objection, and the defendant duly excepted.

Wm. L Martin, Atty. Gen., for the State.

HARALSON J.

The statute under which the defendant was indicted, cannot be construed to mean, that it is criminal, under any and all circumstances, for the husband to abandon his wife. He may do so for any divorcible cause. Carney v. State, 84 Ala. 7, 4 So. 285; Boulo v. State, 49 Ala. 23. As an excuse for abandoning the wife, the husband cannot set up misconduct of which she was guilty after the abandonment unless such misconduct is connected in some way with, and tends to illustrate and explain similar acts committed by her before the separation, which are pleaded by him in justification for leaving her. In this case, there was no proof of infidelity committed by the wife during the marriage, and the evidence offered by defendant for the purpose of showing that after he abandoned her, she was guilty of adultery, was properly excluded. Alsabrooks v State, 52 Ala. 24.

The indictment was filed the 3d of October, 1890. The abandonment as shown, occurred about the 1st of December, 1889, after the defendant had lived with his wife, a little over a year. At the time of the marriage she had two children, and one in about four months...