Harris v. State

144 S.W. 232, 64 Tex. Crim. 594, 1912 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 40
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Texas
DecidedJanuary 17, 1912
DocketNo. 1142.
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 144 S.W. 232 (Harris v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Harris v. State, 144 S.W. 232, 64 Tex. Crim. 594, 1912 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 40 (Tex. 1912).

Opinion

PRENDERGAST, Judge.

On December 3, 1910, appellant was indicted for incest with his sister, Janie Harris, alleged to have occurred on or about January 15, 1910. He was tried January 12, 1911, convicted and his punishment fixed at two years in the penitiary.

The proof shows that W. C. Harris, sixty-seven years old, for several years prior to the commission of this offense, lived on a farm .in Wise County with his unmarried brother, fifty-three years old, and his four children—three sons, Ira, age twenty-three; Luden, age twenty-one; Carl, the appellant, age nineteen, and his daughter, Janie, afterwards Mrs. Janie Brown, seventeen years of age. These were the ages at the time of the trial. The house they lived in had six rooms, two,- his kitchen and dining-room, an ell on the ground floor, and four other rooms, two on the ground floor and two on a second story above them. During the years of 1909 and 1910, till in September, the father and his brother slept together in one of the ground floor rooms in which the stairway was situated. Janie slept in the other ground floor room alone. Said three sons slept in the two rooms of the second story. Sometimes two of the brothers slept in *596 one room and one in the other. They changed about. The evidence shows, however, that Carl occasionally, if not frequently, slept in one of the roojns alone, the other two brothers sleeping in the other room together. In order for either of the brothers, at night, after all had retired, to have had access to Janie’s room it would be necessary to come down the stairway in the father’s and his brother’s room, through it into her room.

In September, 1910, the father and his brother and his three sons became aware of the fact that Janie was pregnant. The father during this month is shown to have discussed this fact with Carl, but with neither of his other sons, or his brother. During January and February, 1910, Ira was shown to have worked at a gin in Decatur, some six miles distant from his home, as many as two days or more each week, staying at his father’s with the family during these months while he was not thus at work in Decatur. Lucien, the other son, was shown to have gone to Fort Worth to school in June, 1910, and remained there thereafter either at school or working as a stenographer. He did not testify upon the trial. It does not appear whether he was present attending the court' at the time of the trial or not.

The father testified on the trial that he had never at any time had sexual intercourse with his daughter Janie. While Ira testified on the trial to many facts when asked if he had ever had sexual intercourse with Janie, refused to testify because it might incriminate him. The uncle of the girl, the brother of her father, testified that he at no. time had ever had sexual intercourse with Janie. Carl, the appellant, did not testify at all on the trial.

Janie was shown to have attended school in 1909, and on one or two occasions accompanied some young men from her home during that year to some party or other gathering in the neighborhood. The evidence in no way tends to show and it seems was not contended that she at any time had had intercourse with any of these persons with whom she had occasionally gone, except Joe Brown. Joe Brown was a boy living a few miles from the Harris family. He also attended the same school with Janie in 1909; they were then sweethearts, and in the fall of 1909 became engaged to be married. He occasionally went with her to some gathering and was with her occasionally during 1909 and in 1910. He was devotedly in love with her, and she, apparently, with him. In September, 1910, Janie’s pregnancy became known. At' this time Ira was staying in Decatur at work—was not at home. Lucien was in Fort Worth and had been continuously for months. Some time during September—on Wednesday before they left the following Sunday night to get married—Janie told Joe Brown, her sweetheart, and to whom she was engaged, that she was pregnant and then told him who was the father of the unborn child. Joe Brown, at this time, did not know and thought her condition was unknown to others. Because of his *597 devoted love for her and in order to protect her, he agreed to take her away from there and marry her. It was arranged between the father, the girl, Carl and Joe Brown that on the night of September 25, 1910, Carl would quietly and secretly take her from home in his buggy, pick up Joe Brown a mile or two therefrom on the road to Decatur, a railroad point, and that Joe Brown and she would take the night train to some point outside of the State and marry. Joe Brown had but one dollar and fifty cents in money. In June, 1910, the father had borrowed from Carl fifty dollars in money to send Lucien to school in Fort Worth. Whether he used the money for that purpose is not made clear. However, on September 21, 1910, the father repaid Carl the fifty dollars Carl had loaned him and upon the suggestion of the father it was agreed between Carl and him that Carl would give to Janie this money to go away on and marry Joe Brown, which Carl did. The fact that it was Carl’s money and that he gave it to his sister for the purpose stated is not disputed. She had no other money except this. When Carl took his sister and Joe Brown to the train at night, as above stated, he drove directly to the depot for them to take the train—stopped a little distance from the train. Before they got to Decatur on this . occasion, doubtless on that day, Carl had procured two railroad tickets—one to Wichita Falls and the other to Vernon. The purpose of this was that if anyone found out Joe and Janie had left on that train they would find that one went to one place and the other to the other.' When they got to the depot the train was • just then pulling in and they hastened to and got. upon the train. Both went to Vernon. Before reaching there- they concluded that the)r would go to Frederick, Oklahoma, which they did, and they were married there the next day, September 26, 1910. Just a few days after that Joe Brown’s brother went to Frederick, found Joe and his wife and had a conference with him. Joe then saw his wife. They all three then returned to Decatur, in Wise County. The night of September 26, 1910, when they took the train and left Decatur was Sunday night. They started back to Decatur from Frederick, Oklahoma, on Friday night of the same week they were married and reached Decatur early Monday morning and then they all went first to the jail and then to the courthouse and saw the county attorney of Wise County, Mr. Bailiff. Joe’s wife, his brother, mother and father, and brother-in-law and Mr. Branch, the sheriff, were all in the room of Mr. Bailiff, the county attorney, on that Monday morning. Joe Brown testified that he had never had sexual intercourse with Janie prior to his marriage to her. After leaving Decatur on this occasion, Joe Brown and his wife Janie went from» there to Fort Worth and remained there, living with her as his .wife until about a week before Christmas, 1910, when they separated, she going back to her father’s and he to his. While they were living together on November 10, 1910, a child was born to Janie.

*598 On Saturday, September 24, 1910, Janie’s father and his brother went to Fort Worth.

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Bluebook (online)
144 S.W. 232, 64 Tex. Crim. 594, 1912 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 40, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/harris-v-state-texcrimapp-1912.