Jones v. State

• Decision Date: 26 June 1918
• Docket Number: (No. 5089.)
• Citation: 204 S.W. 437
• Parties: JONES v. STATE.
• Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

204 S.W. 437

JONES v. STATE.

(No. 5089.)

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.

June 26, 1918.

Appeal from District Court, Bexar County; W. S. Anderson, Judge.

Thomas Jones was convicted of rape and he appeals. Reversed and remanded.

E. B. Hendricks, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

DAVIDSON, P. J.

This conviction was for rape on a girl under fifteen years of age. The punishment assessed was for 99 years in the penitentiary.

When the case was called for trial the attorneys who represented the defendant were called from their office by the court and appointed to represent appellant in the trial. They knew nothing of the case, and asked time to consider and look into it, to the end that they might give the defendant the benefit of their service under the law, and to the end that he might have a fair trial as they thought the law and the facts justified. To this end they moved the court to postpone the case a sufficient time for them to get witnesses from Wichita Falls, from which place the defendant and prosecutrix had removed to San Antonio. The court informed them that he would allow them two days in which to confer with, and if they thought proper to secure the attendance of the witnesses from Wichita Falls. They contended, and correctly so we think, that this was not sufficient time, and were put to trial. We think this was error, especially in the light of later developments.

Appellant's wife at the time of the trial was in the insane asylum for temporary cause. Appellant's contention was that he had not had intercourse with his daughter, and that her prosecution of him was for ulterior purposes and reasons and her testimony false. On the motion for new trial there were attached affidavits going to sustain his theory of the case. His wife had become restored to a sane condition in the meantime, and filed an affidavit, attached to the motion for new trial, which tended strongly to disprove the state's case. The doctor who testified in behalf of the state as to the examination of the girl also filed an affidavit attached to the motion for new trial, which would tend to show that the previous condition of the girl's private parts could have been produced from other causes than sexual intercourse. He testified cautiously that the girl's private parts showed one of two things, that she had been having sexual intercourse, or had been committing masturbation. There was nothing from his examination showing recent acts of copulation. The wife would...