Jones v. State

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas

Decided April 16, 1952

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas · decided 1952-04-16

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““. . .If appellant was not of sufficient age to authorize his conviction of a felony, he should have so shown.””

quoted by 1 later decision, including Bannister v. State

Relies on 156 Tex. Crim. 2 - Jones v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1952-04-16

How this case has been cited

Cited by 3 later decisions — most recently June 1977

3 state decisions

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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DAVIDSON, Commissioner.

¶1Indecent fondling of the person of a female minor is the offense; the punishment, five years in the penitentiary.

¶2That appellant fondled the privates of a four-year-old female is shown by the testimony of at least two disinterested witnesses. The facts warrant the jury’s conclusion of guilt.

¶3Appellant insists that the so-called fondling statute, Art. 535d, Vernon’s Ann.P.C., is vague and indefinite both as to the offense denounced and the punishment authorized to be .assessed thereunder.

¶4We deem the validity of the statute to have been determined by the case of Jones v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 238 S.W.2d 529.

¶5The statute applies to “any person.” It became unnecessary, therefore, for the state to prove either the sex or the age of the appellant. If appellant was not of sufficient age to authorize his conviction of a felony, he should have so shown.

¶6No reversible error appearing, the judgment is affirmed.

¶7Opinion approved by the Court.