State v. Jones

• Decision Date: 11 October 1916
• Docket Number: No. 23100.,23100.
• Citation: 113 N.E. 755,185 Ind. 234
• Parties: STATE v. JONES.
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

185 Ind. 234

113 N.E. 755

STATE

v.JONES.

No. 23100.

Supreme Court of Indiana.

Oct. 11, 1916.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Knox County; B. M. Willoughby, Judge.

Charles Jones was acquitted, and the State appeals. Appeal sustained.

Evan B. Stotsenburg, Atty. Gen., and Omer S. Jackson and Wilbur T. Gruber, Asst. Attys. Gen., for the State.

LAIRY, J.

Appellee was tried in the court below on the charge of perjury, and was acquitted. The state appeals on reserved questions of law.

The offense charged is based on an affidavit made by appellee and filed in another case, wherein he was charged with keeping a house of prostitution. In that case a motion for a continuance was filed, based upon the absence of certain witnesses whose attendance could not be procured at the trial. In support of such motion appellee filed an affidavit, in which he stated, among other things, the names of the witnesses and the facts to which they would testify if present, that the facts to which they would testify were true, and that he could not prove such facts by any other witness whose attendance could be procured. The facts to which such witnesses would testify as shown by the affidavit, if true, would have constituted a complete defense, by showing that he had nothing to do with conducting the house of prostitution, but that it was conducted by his wife, Dora B. Jones; that he had not been in or about the house operated by his wife for two years prior to the return of the indictment, except on four or five occasions, when he went there to endeavor to persuade his wife to give up the business and come and live with him at some other place, promising to make a living for her in an honorable way; that on such occasions he was present for only 15 or 20 minutes at a time, and that he had nothing to do with managing the house and received no part of the proceeds. In the case at bar the indictment charges that said affidavit was falsely and corruptly made; that appellee swore therein that the facts to which such witnesses would testify as stated therein were true, whereas such facts were false, and were known to be false at the time he made the affidavit. The concluding part of the indictment upon which appellee was tried in this case is as follows:

“Whereas in truth and in fact during all of the two years next prior to the return of the indictment mentioned in said affidavit the said Charles Jones was in the house described in said affidavit as the ‘Bungalow’ more than three or four or five times, and whereas in truth and in fact on divers occasions while there during the said period of two years prior to the return of said indictment, he, the said Charles Jones, stayed more than 15 or 20 minutes at a time, and whereas in truth and in fact the said Charles Jones did conduct, manage, and operate said house and the business therein within the two years prior to the return of said indictment, and that the said Charles Jones, then and there...