State v. Fuchs
| Decision Date | 21 April 1885 |
| Parties | STATE OF MISSOURI, Respondent, v. HENRY FUCHS, Appellant. |
| Court | Missouri Court of Appeals |
APPEAL from the St. Louis Court of Criminal Correction, NOONAN, J.
Reversed and the defendant discharged.
J. M. HOLMES, for the appellant.
J. R. CLAIBORNE and JOSEPH JECKO, for the respondent.
The defendant was prosecuted on a criminal information for abandoning his wife without good cause, and failing, neglecting, and refusing to maintain her and provide for her, under section 1273, Revised Statutes. He was convicted, and sentenced to undergo ten days' imprisonment in jail, and to pay a fine of $500. The defendant and the prosecutrix had been married about three years, at the time of the prosecution, and he abandoned her, or they separated, about two weeks before she instituted the prosecution, and about nine weeks before the trial.
Her testimony tended to show that they had lived happily together until about four months previous to the separation, when she discovered that he was paying improper attentions to a woman named Mrs. Renninger, after which time they quarrelled frequently, and she admits that she applied to him epithets too vile to be put in a judicial opinion. His testimony on the trial tends to show that she had been in the habit of applying these epithets to him for two years before the separation; that she had assaulted him more than once in the presence of third persons; that she had driven him from his house and compelled him to sleep several nights in his shop; that she openly avowed her intention of getting rid of him; and that she finally drove him off, and packed his trunk and took it to the lower hall in the house, and delivered it to a messenger whom he had sent for it. In short if his testimony is true, the epithets which she applied to him were of such a foul and obscene character, so insulting and degrading, that no court would have any difficulty in saying that they constituted such indignities as would give him ground for a divorce. Some of these she admits herself. She claims, however, that she never intentionally used the vile and abusive language towards him as to which she and other witnesses testify, until she discovered that he was improperly intimate with the woman Renninger, and that the exasperation which she felt in consequence of his conduct in this regard, drove her to use such language. She watched the house of Mrs. Renninger, and claims to have seen her husband there daily, morning, noon, and night. On one occasion she testifies that she went in the house and found her husband and Mrs. Renninger drinking beer together, and that Mrs. Renninger assaulted her, beat her, and threw her down stairs, and her husband did not attempt to interfere. The next day according to his testimony, she went to his place of business, applied to him vile epithets, said she was determined to get rid of him some way, she didn't care how, struck at him with her hand, and threw a piece of iron at him.
He produced evidence tending to show that about the time of the separation, he had failed in business, and had become insolvent; but it should be said that his testimony in this regard fails to show that he was unable to obtain employment, or to contribute something towards her support. Her evidence, on the other hand, fails to show that he left her wholly without means, although it tends to show that, prior to the trial, she had supported herself by selling off furniture piece by piece; that she was then in a state of destitution and about to become a mother; yet it fails to show that she had not been supported by means furnished by him prior to the filing of the information.
Since the separation she had removed to a place on...
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State v. Kahlert
...have not infrequently found it necessary to reverse judgments in cases of this character for insufficiency of the evidence. State v. Fuchs, 17 Mo. App. 458; State v. Tietz, 186 Mo. App. 672, 172 S. W. 474; State v. Lyons (Mo. App.) 207 S. W. 264; State v. Frederici (Mo. App.) 184 S. W. 170;......
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State v. Thomas
...even though this requires the State to prove the negative. The State failed to prove that the abandonment was without good cause. State v. Fuchs, 17 Mo.App. 458; State v. Brinkman, 40 Mo.App. 284; State Satchwell, 68 Mo.App. 39; State v. Linck, 68 Mo.App. 162; State v. Weber, 48 Mo.App. 500......
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Foster v. Wulfing
...App. 274; Birtwhistle v. Woodward, 17 Mo. App. 277; Tobin v. McCann, 17 Mo. App. 481; Thompson v. Bronson, 17 Mo. App. 456; The State v. Fuchs, 17 Mo. App. 458; The State v. Fayette, 17 Mo. App. 587; Rubleman v. Greve, 18 Mo. App. 6; Hollander v. Kætter, ante, p. 79; McQuoid v. Lamb, 19 Mo.......
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State v. Anderson
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