Purvis v. State

• Decision Date: 18 December 1907
• Parties: PURVIS v. STATE.
• Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

106 S.W. 355

PURVIS v. STATE.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.

December 18, 1907.

Appeal from Hardin County Court; H. N. Vickers, Judge.

G. W. Purvis was convicted of keeping a disorderly house, and he appeals. Reversed and remanded.

R. L. Durham and Taliaferro & Nall, for appellant. F. J. McCord, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

DAVIDSON, P. J.

Appellant was convicted for keeping a disorderly house. The complaint and information charges that appellant was the owner, lessee, and person in charge of a certain house in which malt liquors were kept for sale, and that he permitted prostitutes, lewd women, and women of bad reputation for chastity to display and conduct themselves in said house in a lewd, lascivious, and indecent manner, and that he was the owner, lessee, and person in control of a certain house in which malt liquors were kept for sale, and that he did unlawfully and knowingly employ and have in his service in said house one Mary, a lewd woman and a woman of bad reputation for chastity.

Appellant applied for a continuance for the testimony of two witnesses, Kirk and Garvin. By Garvin appellant expected to prove that one Mary, whose name is set out in the indictment as being a prostitute in the employment of appellant, and as a lewd woman whose reputation for chastity was bad, was the wife of the witness, and that the witness and his wife were boarding with defendant, and that she was not then employed in the house where appellant kept malt liquors for sale. By the witness Kirk he expected to prove that he (the witness) was employed in said house, and knew all the inmates of said house and parties employed therein, and that appellant did not have in his employment any women who were prostitutes, or lewd women, or women of bad reputation for chastity, and that during the entire time of his employment there were no prostitutes, lewd women, or women of bad reputation for chastity permitted to resort to said house, or permitted to display and conduct themselves in a lewd, lascivious, and indecent manner; that his employment was prior to and subsequent to the 15th day of September, the date alleged in the complaint and information at which appellant should have so carried on the disorderly house. The testimony of these witnesses was material. The county attorney, in order to defeat this motion, in open court stated to the court that if he would overrule the continuance he (the county attorney) in behalf of the state would admit that if...