State v. Anderson
| Decision Date | 15 April 1909 |
| Citation | 82 Conn. 111,72 A. 648 |
| Parties | STATE v. ANDERSON. |
| Court | Connecticut Supreme Court |
Appeal from Criminal Court of Common Pleas, New Haven County; Isaac Wolfe, Judge.
Tillie Anderson was convicted of keeping a house of ill fame, and appeals. Reversed.
Information under section 1316, Gen. St. 1902, chapter 122, p. 674, Pub. Acts 1907, for keeping a house of ill fame, brought to the court of common pleas in New Haven county, and tried to the jury before Wolfe, J., after he had overruled the defendant's demurrer to the information; verdict and judgment of guilty and appeal by the accused. Error and new trial ordered.
Ernest L. Averill, for appellant. Robert J. Woodruff, for the State.
HALL, J. Section 1316, Gen. St. 1902, chapter 122, p. 674, Pub. Acts 1907, p. 674, provides that "every person who shall keep a house which is, or is reputed to he, a house of ill fame, or which is resorted to, or is reputed to be resorted to, for the purposes of prostitution and lewdness * * * shall be fined * * * or imprisoned. * * *" The information charges the accused with having kept a "house which was, and was reputed to be, a house of ill fame, which was resorted to, and was reputed to be resorted to, by divers persons to the attorney unknown for the purposes of prostitution and lewdness. * * *" The accused demurred to the information, upon the grounds, in substance, that it is uncertain; that it charges four distinct offenses; and that the statute upon which It is based is, for several reasons, repugnant to the provisions of sections 1, 9, 21, art. 1, of the state Constitution, and to the fifth, sixth, and fourteenth amendments of the federal Constitution. As we interpret the language of the information, it charges but one offense, namely, that the accused, on the day named, was the keeper of a certain house which was in fact, and was reputed to be, a house of ill fame. The words immediately following, "which was resorted to * * * for the purposes of prostitution and lewdness," are merely descriptive of a house which is in fact reputed to be a house of ill fame. The accused is not charged with being the reputed keeper, but the actual keeper, of a house of such character and such repute. Under the statute quoted, and upon this information, she could have been lawfully convicted of having kept a house which was in fact a house of prostitution. Whether she could have been lawfully convicted of any offense upon an information charging her only with having kept a house reputed to be a house of prostitution, we are not in this case required to decide. Reading the information as we do, it is open to none of the objections raised by the demurrer. Upon the trial the state introduced evidence that the house was reputed to be, and was in fact, a house of prostitution, and that the accused was the keeper and proprietor of it. The accused admitted that she was the keeper of the house, but offered evidence to prove that it was not in fact a house of prostitution, and was not reputed to be such in its immediate nighborhood.
The accused requested the court to instruct the jury that it was not enough to prove that the house kept by the accused was reputed to be a house of ill fame, but that "the state must satisfy the jury beyond...
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State v. Morrow
... ... 952, 40 L.Ed ... 1097, 40 L.Ed. 1097; Hale v. State, 58 Ohio ... St. 676, 51 N.E. 154; State Board of Medical ... Examiners v. Giedroyc, 91 N.J.L. 61, 102 A. 906; ... Reynolds v. State, 141 Md. 637, 119 A. 457; ... Jones v. Commonwealth, 104 Ky. 468, 47 S.W ... 328; State v. Anderson, 82 Conn. 111, 72 A ... 648; People v. Gusti, 113 Cal. 177, 45 ... P. 263; Franklin v. State, 153 Ark. 536, ... 240 S.W. 708 ... The ... question now being considered was decided by this Court in ... State v. Satterfield, 6 Boyce (29 ... Del.) 443, 100 A. 473. In that case William ... ...
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State v. Malena
...defendants probably have in mind rulings on the subject appearing in cases such as Cadwell v. State, 17 Conn. 467, 472; State v. Anderson, 82 Conn. 111, 114, 72 A. 648; Morse v. Brown, 83 Conn. 550, 553, 78 A. 430, and State v. Gaetano, supra, See Wharton, Criminal Evidence (12th Ed.) §§ 22......
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People v. Alterie, 22286.
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