State v. James

• Decision Date: 21 December 1940
• Citation: 145 S.W.2d 783,177 Tenn. 21
• Parties: STATE v. JAMES et al.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

145 S.W.2d 783

177 Tenn. 21

STATE v. JAMES et al.

Supreme Court of Tennessee.

December 21, 1940

Certiorari to Criminal Court, Davidson County; Charles Gilbert, Judge.

Proceeding by the State of Tennessee against Bill James and others to enjoin defendants from engaging in illegal storage and sale of liquor and conducting and maintaining a bawdyhouse. A decree granting an injunction was affirmed by the Court of Appeals, and defendants Bill James and Grace James bring certiorari.

Writ denied.

Harry G. Nichol, of Nashville, for the State.

A. P Ottarson, Jr., J. N. Daniel, Joe Brown Cummings, and Albert Williams, all of Nashville, for defendants James.

McKINNEY Justice.

The petition herein was filed under the authority of section 9324 of the Code, which provides that "the conducting maintaining, or engaging in the sale of intoxicating liquors the keeping, maintaining, or conducting bawdy or assignation houses; *** are hereby declared to be public nuisances, and may be abated under the provisions of this chapter."

The trial court found all four of the defendants guilty and decreed that they be permanently enjoined from engaging in the illegal storage and sale of liquor, and from conducting and maintaining a bawdyhouse on the premises fully described in the decree. Bill James and Grace James alone appealed. The Court of Appeals affirmed the decree of the trial court, and the case is in this court upon the petition of Bill James and Grace James for a writ of certiorari, by which they ask this court to review and reverse the decrees of the other courts.

All of the defendants are negroes. The principal actor in the drama is Bill James, who is thirty-five years of age and the husband of Grace James. It appears from the record that these parties moved to Nashville in 1933, but the record does not disclose where they came from. Upon their arrival, Bill James became engaged in the "Numbers Game," and at some subsequent date was convicted of that offense and served a term of imprisonment therefor. How long he carried on that business, the date of his conviction, and the punishment imposed does not appear in the transcript. Evidently from that business, or from some other source, James accumulated quite a nice estate. In 1937 he built a two-story hotel at 1122-1124 Cedar Street containing a restaurant and six bedrooms on the ground floor and twelve bedrooms on the second floor. These parties also own two store buildings and a theater building in the neighborhood of this hotel. Title to all of this property was taken in the name of the wife, Grace James. Bill James is the manager of the hotel and the other two defendants were employees of that hostelry. James and his wife lived in an apartment about a half block from the hotel.

The record shows that one Roy Cooper became a roomer at this hotel on November 22, 1939, and from his room was engaged in bootlegging liquor until he was expelled by James. The record shows that for a month prior to Christmas, 1939, the Department of Finance and Taxation procured a number of persons to purchase liquor from Cooper and furnished twenty dollars or more for that purpose. James testified that so many people were going to Cooper's room that he became suspicious he was selling whisky, and discovered that he was about a week after he took up his residence at the hotel. Notwithstanding this knowledge, James made no attempt to have this evil suppressed until after the petition herein was filed on January 9, 1940. Thereafter James complained to the police of the city and had them to make a raid on Cooper's room on January 17, 1940; but, of course, they found no whisky but only a number of empty whisky bottles. This, quite likely, was a clever scheme on the part of this shrewd law violator to make it appear that he was assisting the officials in enforcing the law; but he admits that in some way, unknown to himself, Cooper was informed that the raid would be made, thereby enabling him to dispose of his liquors before the officers arrived.

On the night of January 7, 1940, officers, being advised that there was a white woman in this hotel, raided it, finding two white women in bed, or who had been in bed, with negro men; also five negro couples, who were not married, occupying beds together. On this particular night it appears that the defendant, William Bradley, who was night clerk, left the hotel in charge of his codefendant, John Moore, and drove in an automobile to McGavock Street where he picked up two white girls and brought them to this hotel, being admitted by Moore through the back door, for the purpose of gratifying the lust of himself and another negro man. It is also shown that there is a buzzer on the back door of this hotel so that entrance may be gained at that place. James testified that the buzzer was installed for the benefit of chauffeurs who parked their automobiles in the rear.

Upon this testimony we think there is ample evidence to support the concurrent findings of the other courts.

It is urged, however, that the record establishes the use of this hotel for assignation purposes only one night. We think it can be reasonably inferred that if there were seven couples so engaged on that one night that like offenses had been committed on previous nights.

In Lewinsohn v. United States, 7 Cir., 278 F. 421, 425, petition denied by the Supreme Court in 258 U.S. 630, 42 S.Ct. 463, 66 L.Ed. 800, it is said:

"Counsel stresses the necessity of proving repeated sales in order to justify a finding of a common nuisance, citing United States v. Cohen (D.C.) 268 F. 420. But such a test is neither an accurate nor an exclusive one. The court might well conclude from evidence of a single sale that the room or the building was a common nuisance and that it was a place where liquor was 'being manufactured, sold, kept or bartered' in violation of the statute. No doubt repeated sales of the same beverage on other occasions and under other circumstances might justify greater certainty in the trier's mind as to the use to which the building was being put. There could be, however, an almost irrefutable conclusion drawn from a single sale, provided the facts surrounding such sale warranted the inference that it was one of the ordinary and

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