De Jean v. State

• Decision Date: 09 November 1914
• Citation: 108 Miss. 146,66 So. 411
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: DE JEAN et al. v. STATE

66 So. 411

108 Miss. 146

DE JEAN et al. v. STATE

Supreme Court of Mississippi

November 9, 1914

October 1914

APPEAL from the circuit court of Harrison county. HON. J. I BALLENGER, Judge.

L. P De Jean, was convicted of unlawful cohabitation and appeals.

The questions asked appellant De Jean by the district attorney referred to in the opinion are as follows:

Q Isn't it a fact that your father-in-law ran you out of the house on account of your association with this woman? (Objected to. Sustained.) A. No, sir; my father-in-law lived with me. We lived there until my son-in-law completed rooms upstairs over his residence.

Q. Didn't your son run you out of his house because of your association with this woman? (Objection. Overruled. Exception.) A. No, sir.

Q. Isn't it a fact that your son doesn't speak to you on account of your association with this woman? (Objection. Sustained. Exception.)

Q. Isn't it a fact that your son repeatedly interfered between you and this woman and endeavored to get you to leave this woman? (Objection sustained.)

Q. Isn't it a fact that you were expelled from the Elks on account of living with this woman? (Objection. Sustained.)

Q. Isn't it a fact that the citizens of Pascagoula horsewhipped this woman and ran her out of town because you lived with her? (Objection. Overruled.) A. No, sir; not that I know of, only from hearsay they notified her some while after, but I know nothing of it.

Reversed and remanded.

Mize & Mize, for appellants.

Ross A. Collins, Attorney-General, for the State.

OPINION

REED, J.

Appellants were tried and convicted upon the charge of unlawful cohabitation. There is evidence to support the verdict of the jury. The offense was proved by circumstances.

We reverse this case because the district attorney in his closing argument commented upon the failure of appellant, De Jean, to offer evidence of his previous character. Objections were made to the language used, and the objections were overruled. We quote from the special bill of exceptions as follows:

"Gentlemen of the jury, the defendant here says that he has been a business man over in Pascagoula for twenty-five years. Yes, his attorneys say that the defendant has lived in Pascagoula for twenty-five or thirty years, and has evidently been a successful man, has raised a family there and this is the first time he has been indicted for crime, never has been convicted of any crime. Yet he has not brought a single witness from over there among all those people who have known him for twenty-five or thirty years to testify about his character."

"The defendant says he has a son thirty-five years...