66 S.E.2d 645
33551.Court of Appeals of Georgia.
DECIDED SEPTEMBER 7, 1951.
MacINTYRE, P. J.
“To sustain an accusation charging the offense of keeping and maintaining `a common, ill-governed, and disorderly house, to the encouragement of idleness, gaming and drinking, to the common disturbance of the neighborhood and orderly citizens,’ it must appear that the house was in fact a `common, ill-governed, and disorderly’ establishment, and that the keeping and maintenance of it encouraged idleness, or gaming, or drinking, or other misbehavior; or that the house was kept and maintained in such a manner as to cause `common disturbance of the neighborhood or orderly citizens'” (Fanning v. State, 17 Ga. App. 316, 86 S.E. 731; Palfus v. State, 36 Ga. 280; Heard v. State, 113 Ga. 444, 39 S.E. 118; Little v. State, 3 Ga. App. 441, 60 S.E. 113, and see Martin v. State, 62 Ga. App. 902, 10 S.E.2d 254); and where it appears from the evidence that the accused kept and maintained a house which was ill-governed and disorderly in the sense in which the words are usually understood and that he did so for a sufficient length of time to render applicable to it, as a disorderly house, the descriptive term, “common,” and it further appears that the keeping and maintaining of it encouraged drinking and idleness or that the house was kept and maintained in such a manner as to cause common disturbance to the neighborhood, a verdict finding the accused guilty under an accusation drawn under Code § 26-6103, is authorized.
Judgment affirmed. Gardner and Townsend, JJ., concur.
DECIDED SEPTEMBER 7, 1951.
Keeping disorderly house; from Carrollton City Court — Judge Taylor. February 17, 1951.
The defendant, Winnie Turner, was tried and convicted under an accusation charging that he did “unlawfully keep and maintain a common, ill-governed and disorderly house to the encouragement of idleness, drinking, and other misbehavior.” His motion for a new trial, based alone on the general grounds, was overruled, and he excepted.
The defendant introduced no evidence and made no statement to the jury. The entire evidence for the State was as follows: “My name is Bill Wingate. I am deputy sheriff of Carroll County, Georgia. I was deputy sheriff on the 22nd day of September, 1950. I know Winnie Turner. There he is (witness indicating). I saw Winnie Turner on the 22nd day of September 1950. I went to his home. His home is in Carroll County. I have been to the home of Winnie Turner on occasions prior to September 22, 1950. I wouldn’t say how many occasions I have been to the home of Winnie Turner. On 22nd of September, 1950, we went there on complaint from the neighbors up there [they] had been calling several times, and in the
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kitchen we found either three or four drunk men up there, and went back in the kitchen and there was liquor bottles and cards where they had torn the whole house up in there. We brought three or four or five drunk negroes back in from up there that night. We have been up there several times prior to this and picked up drunks in his yard and on the little road leading by the side of his house. I haven’t been in his house since that day. I have had conversation with Winnie Turner about the conditions around his house. The sheriff and I both talked to him and talked to his wife and told him we would have to make a case against him if he didn’t straighten up. That was prior to September 22, 1950. On other occasions prior to September 22, we picked up several drunks around Winnie’s yard and in front of his house and in the forks of the road, cars parked there and four or five negroes piled up in there drunk and liquor bottles all over the yard out there in the road.”
Emmett Smith, for plaintiff in error.
Earl Staples, Solicitor, contra.