State v. Nicholas

• Decision Date: 02 April 1907
• Parties: STATE v. NICHOLAS et al.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

101 S.W. 618

124 Mo. A. 330

STATE v. NICHOLAS et al.

St. Louis Court of Appeals. Missouri.

April 2, 1907.

1. INDICTMENT AND INFORMATION — STATING DIFFERENT OFFENSES SEPARATELY — NECESSITY.

When different offenses are charged in the same information, they must be stated in separate counts, and each count must be complete in itself.

2. SAME.

Under Rev. St. 1899, § 2175 [Ann. St. 1906, p. 1395], providing that every person who shall live in open adultery, and every man and woman, one or both of whom are married, and not to each other, who shall lewdly cohabit with each other, and every person guilty of open lewdness, etc., shall, on conviction, be adjudged guilty of a misdemeanor, etc., an information charging defendants in one count with living "in a state of open and notorious adultery," with "lewdly and lasciviously" cohabiting with each other, and of "open, gross lewdness and lascivious behavior," charged three separate and distinct offenses, which must be stated in separate counts, and each count must be complete in itself.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Pemiscot County; Henry C. Riley, Judge.

P. G. Nicholas and another were convicted of a misdemeanor, and appeal. Reversed.

J. S. Gossom, for appellants. L. L. Collins, for the State.

BLAND, P. J.

Defendants appealed from a verdict and judgment rendered against them in the Pemiscot circuit court, on the following information: "L. L. Collins, prosecuting attorney, duly elected, commissioned, sworn, qualified, installed and acting as such in and for the county of Pemiscot, in the state of Missouri, upon his oath and upon his hereto appended oath, informs the court; and upon his said oath and upon his hereto appended oath does depose, present, aver and charge that defendant P. G. Nicholas and Fannie Nicholas on the first day of November, A. D. 1905, and from that date until the filing of this information at the said county of Pemiscot and state of Missouri, did then and there unlawfully, wrongfully and willfully, live in a state of open and notorious adultery; and did then and there lewdly and lasciviously abide and cohabit with each other; and was then and there guilty of open, gross lewdness, and lascivious behavior, by then and there publicly, lewdly and lasciviously abiding and cohabiting with each other and habitually having sexual intercourse with each other and lying in a bed together, not being then and there married to each other, he, the said P. G. Nicholas, being then and there a...