People v. Martin

California Court of Appeal Aug 26, 1929 No. Docket No. 1085.Published

Before: Finch

AI Brief

AI-generated · verify before citing

Holding. The court held that the evidence was sufficient to support a conviction for willful abandonment and nonsupport of a wife, and that a husband cannot escape criminal liability by relying on the fact that his wife was supported by the charity of others.

Issues

Whether the evidence was sufficient to prove willful abandonment and nonsupport.
Whether the defendant had the ability to provide for his wife's support.
Whether evidence of the defendant's earnings after the date of the alleged offense was admissible.
Whether a husband is relieved of criminal liability if his wife is supported by others.

Disposition. affirmed

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“it cannot be held that the trial court was not justified in finding from the whole evidence that the defendant had “sufficient ability to provide for bis wife’s support””

“it was held that the defendant could not escape criminal liability by showing that the child was supported by the charity of others.”

FINCH, P. J.

The information herein filed January 5, 1929, charges the defendant with the crime Of abandoning and leaving his wife in a destitute condition, “on or about the 11th day of July, 1928,” and refusing and neglecting to provide her with necessary food, clothing, shelter and medical attendance. The case was tried before the court without a jury, the defendant expressly waiving a jury trial. He was found guilty and sentenced to imprisonment in the county jail. This appeal ig from the judgment and the order denying a new trial.

Appellant contends that the evidence is not sufficient to show that he wilfully abandoned and left his wife in a destitute condition or refused to provide her with the necessities of life.

Mrs. Martin testified that on many occasions from June 1 to July 11, 1928, the defendant, without cause and in profane and vulgar language, ordered her to leave, threatening that he would kick her out if she did not; that by reason of such conduct, on July 11th, .she left and went to the home of a neighbor, where she lived for several weeks; that on September 6, 1928, she broke some small bones in her foot, which prevented her from earning anything for six weeks; that at that time she had no money and had no “help only with what my mother sent me”; that she wrote her husband two letters during that time to the effect that she was “disabled and sick . . . and had no means of getting along,” but he did not go to see her or help her out in any manner. The testimony shows that the defendant refused to pay the physician who attended his wife’s injuries, but this refusal was after the physician’s services had been performed. It was admitted by the defendant that, during the fall of 1928, he notified a butcher not to let Mrs. Martin have any meat on the defendant’s credit. The evidence shows without contradiction that the defendant did nothing whatever toward the support of his wife after she left him.

“Proof of the abandonment and nonsupport of a wife

... is prinm facie

evidence that such abandonment and nonsupport ... is willful.” (Pen. Code, sec. 270e;

People

Wallach,

62 Cal. App. 385, 398 [217 Pac. 81].) The

[437]

People v. Martin

AI Brief

FINCH, P. J.

More from California Court of Appeal

Related research

AI Brief