Wallace v. State
| Decision Date | 08 February 1899 |
| Citation | 49 S.W. 395 |
| Parties | WALLACE v. STATE. |
| Court | Texas Court of Criminal Appeals |
Appeal from Hill county court; W. C. Morrow, Judge.
J. W. Wallace was convicted of slander, and he appeals. Affirmed.
Robt. A. John, for the State.
Appellant was convicted of slander, and his punishment assessed at a fine of $100, and he appeals.
Appellant complains of the action of the court overruling his motion for continuance. The continuance was based on the absence of one Will Cottongame. Said witness is shown to have been subpœnaed, but at the trial was in the Indian Territory. The application states that appellant had just been informed that the witness was in the Indian Territory, and states that he had been in attendance at a former term of the court under subpœna. But it is not shown, however, what were the circumstances connected with the absence of witness, or how it occurred that he had just learned of his absence. We do not think the diligence shown is complete. He says that, when witness left Hill county, he informed defendant that he was going to Erath county, and would write him from there; but that witness did not write to him. It was incumbent on appellant, by the use of reasonable diligence, to have ascertained the reason why said witness had not written to him. At least, some showing should have been made as to why he did not discover his absence in the Indian Territory sooner than the day when the case was called for trial. It is said that the testimony of this witness was material, in order to impeach the state's witnesses as to what the state's witnesses informed him that appellant had said in regard to the Dentons; this statement being a slander, but different from the slander contained in the information. New trials will not ordinarily be granted to obtain testimony of an impeaching character.
Appellant urges that the court erred in overruling his motion to quash and in arrest of judgment. The grounds of the motion were because the information alleges that the defendant said that the Denton women (meaning Elizabeth Denton, Lou Denton, Linnie Denton, and Nancy Miller) would "crack," and it fails to allege that the several women, or either of them, were unmarried, and said information thus fails to negative the fact that they might lawfully have intercourse with men; and said information was insufficient because it charged that defendant slandered four women, naming them, and it fails to appear, by the allegation or otherwise, how Nancy Miller could be a Denton woman, and because the information, by its allegations, included four distinct slanders. As to the last ground, we do not think the information is susceptible to the criticism that it included four slanders. It was one slander of four different persons, made at the same time. Nor was it necessary that the information should have alleged that said Denton women were unmarried. The alleged declaration constituting the slanderous language stated that they would "crack," and evidently intended to convey the idea that they were lewd women; and the statute does not require that the woman be unmarried before she can be slandered in this respect. Nor was it necessary to allege how Nancy Miller came to be one of the Denton women, no more...
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Roberts v. State
...do not think clashes with the first allegation. It is competent to impute to two or more females a want of chastity. See Wallace v. State (Tex. Cr. App.) 49 S. W. 395. The indictment did not require any further innuendo averment than was used to make it clear what was referred to as being A......