State v. Williams
| Citation | 116 S.W. 1128,136 Mo.App. 304 |
| Parties | THE STATE OF MISSOURI, Respondent, v. CHARLES WILLIAMS, Appellant |
| Decision Date | 01 March 1909 |
| Court | Court of Appeals of Kansas |
Appeal from Sullivan Circuit Court.--Hon. John P. Butler, Judge.
AFFIRMED.
Judgment affirmed.
Calfee & Eubanks and Wattenbarger & Bingham for appellant.
(1) The wilful abandonment and failure to support must concur, as they are used conjunctively and not disjunctively in the statute. (2) In a prosecution for wife abandonment there can be no conviction where the evidence for the prosecution shows that at the date of the information the wife, although abandoned by the defendant, was living upon his means. State v. Fuchs, 17 Mo.App. 458. (3) There is no evidence which shows the wife was without any means of support on the day of her death or in fact without a home. State v. Fuchs, 17 Mo.App. 461. (4) Evidence of an abandonment and refusal to provide are not sufficient without a satisfactory showing that there was no good cause. The State is bound to prove that no good cause exists in order to sustain a conviction of a criminal charge. State v. Greenup, 30 Mo.App. 299; State v. Brinkman, 40 Mo.App. 284; State v. Doyle, 68 Mo.App. 219; State v. Bruening, 60 Mo.App. 51; State v Miller, 90 Mo.App. 131. (5) There was no proof of a subsequent failure and refusal to support the deceased wife on part of defendant. (6) The State must go even further than this and show that the defendant had not good cause for leaving his wife, although it requires the proof of a negative. State v. Satchwell, 68 Mo.App. 39.
Scarritt Scarritt & Jones for respondent.
The defendant was tried and convicted on information of the prosecuting attorney for wife abandonment. From the judgment of conviction he appealed.
He was married to Nora Butler on the 11th day of February, 1907, and for some cause unexplained left her the next day, but returned in a short time, when they became reconciled to each other and went to live with his parents. For a few months he was engaged as a farm hand in the employ of M. C. Stone, a neighbor. The evidence is that the husband and wife lived together until the time of the alleged abandonment and there was nothing shown to indicate that there was any trouble between them. During the time defendant provided for his wife a home and the usual necessities for her support.
On May 26, 1907, the defendant telephoned to a liveryman at Milan to bring a team out to his father's house, where he was staying, for the purpose of taking his wife and himself to Milan. He and his wife went to Milan and stayed all night at a hotel and nothing unusual was shown to have transpired between them. The next morning, the wife telephoned to her father to come for them as they were going to make him a visit.
The defendant was last seen with the wife on the streets of the town, but it seems that they became separated sometime in the forenoon. After a while, the wife began a search for him, but failed to find him. The constable of the place, who was assisting the wife in her search, ascertained and reported that defendant had about the middle of the forenoon procured a livery team and driven to Reger, a railroad station about six miles distant and taken the west-bound train for Oklahoma. On his way to Reger, defendant told the driver of the vehicle that he was leaving his wife. He wrote a letter before he left to Mr. Stone, by whom he was employed, in which he said that he was sorry to leave at that time, "but he was going to leave and was gone." This letter was delivered the day that defendant left the country. At different times while defendant was working for Stone, he expressed the intention of leaving his wife and on one occasion said to him that he had no use for a wife. On the day defendant left his wife, she was found dead on the streets of Milan with fifty cents only in her handbag. Defendant after several months' absence returned and was arrested and held for trial.
The defendant asks a reversal of the judgment on two grounds, viz.: First, that the evidence does not show that defendant wilfully abandoned his wife without good cause. Second, that it does not show that he failed to provide for her support.
As to the first, [State v. Satchwell, 68 Mo.App 39.] That cause was reversed for error of the court in excluding evidence offered on the part of defendant tending to show that his...
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