[DOWNLOAD] "Davenport v. District Columbia" by District of Columbia Court of Appeals. # eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Davenport v. District Columbia
- Author : District of Columbia Court of Appeals.
- Release Date : January 21, 1948
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 58 KB
Description
CLAGETT, Associate Judge. Appellant Davenport was convicted of vagrancy and sentenced to serve 90 days in jail. He has appealed, assigning as error the finding of guilt by the trial court, the admission of certain evidence, and the failure to quash the arrest. He further contends that the entire proceedings constituted double jeopardy within the meaning of the federal Constitution, Amendment 5. The District of Columbia vagrancy statute 1 is divided into nine subsections, each of which states a different course of conduct or way of life which if followed constitutes the offender a vagrant. Davenport was charged under subsection 3, defining as a vagrant: 'Any person leading an immoral or profligate life who has no lawful employment and who has no lawful means of support realized from a lawful occupation or source.' Nine different witnesses testified as to Davenport's conduct between May 11 and December 17, 1947, the period covered by the information. A sergeant of the Union Station police testified that he observed Davenport at the Station during the entire period on an average of about four times every week, mostly at night, and had seen him sell whiskey at the Station without a license. A 15-year-old girl testified that at 7:30 a. m. one morning at the Station he made indecent remarks to her, offered her money to commit an immoral act and, when she rejected his advances hit her with a towel. A United States park policeman told of observing Davenport peeping into a window of a girls' dormitory in west Potomac Park. A woman described how appellant had entered a clearly marked ladies' rest room and embarrassed her while she was using the room. A 16-year-old school girl testified that Davenport had approached her in a telephone booth at the Union Station and offered her money to commit an immoral act. Davenport's language quoted by the two girls as having been addressed to them can only be described as lewd and indecent. Another Union Station officer described seeing Davenport approach two soldiers in the Union Station concourse and that Davenport had sold them liquor from a supply he kept in a locker at the Station. He also said that he had observed Davenport 'lots of times in the afternoon and evening and nighttime around the Union Station.' A metropolitan police officer, who had served a warrant on Davenport for selling liquor without a license, testified he had observed Davenport at various times in the daytime and late at night at the Station. Another Station employee testified he had observed him frequently 'roaming around' the Union Station talking to soldiers and that when questioned as to what he was doing at the Station had given such answers as 'I have to make some money to pay my fine next week'; 'I am resting'; 'I have been swimming'; 'I am selling liquor cheaper than the drug store'; 'I am nervous and can't sleep.' Another Station policeman enumerated approximately 25 different occasions during September and October 1947, mostly after midnight and as late as 5:30 a. m., when he had talked with Davenport at the Station. When questioned Davenport gave such explanations for his presence as 'I am selling liquor'; 'I am in the liquor business'; 'I am on a sight-seeing trip'; 'I came to get some sleep'; 'I came for a coke'; 'I am not doing anything'; 'I came for a shave' (at 4:30 a. m.); 'I am going to Hollywood.' On one of those occasions this officer arrested Davenport for drinking liquor in public.