
    16887.
    Hales v. The State.
    Decided December 15, 1925.
    Indictment for misdemeanor; from Gordon superior court— Judge Tarver. September 12, 1925.
    The indictment charged Margaret Hales with the offense of misdemeanor, for that she did unlawfully and with force and arms, she being a single woman, have unlawful sexual intercourse with one Joe Goble. It was testified that the defendant and Joe Goble, a married man, had often, and sometimes at night, been seen riding together, but he had never been seen riding with his wife; that on several occasions Goble 'bought two railroad-tickets. and got' on a night train with the defendant; that about two years before the trial they left the county about the same time and' remained away, but had been seen coming to his mother’s ,in a car and going back to Chattanooga together; that at the .time of his leaving, his wife did not leave, but remained with his mother and made a crop, and that when the defendant was arrested she was at his house near Chattanooga, and his Wife and.children also were there, and that she had never been"married, but had'several children; and the State introduced in evidence a bond -given by her, signed by Joe Goble as surety, to guarantee the maintenance and' education of a bastard child born to her, within a period of two years before the term at which the indictment was returned. The defendant, in her statement at the- trial, denied the charge, and said that her two brothers, her sisters, .and .her brother-in-law lived in the same house in Chattanooga with Joe Goble and his wile, that the ear in which she rode with him belonged to her brother and Goble together, and that Goble was not the father of any of her children.
   Luke, J.

Margaret Hales was convicted of the offense of fornication and adultery. The evidence raised a strong suspicion' of her guilt, but was not sufficient to authorize her conviction. Eor this reason the court erred in overruling the motion for a new trial.

Judgment reversed.

Broyles, G. J., and Bloodworth,- J., concur.

A. L. Henson, for plaintiff in error.

G. G. Pittman, solicitor-general, contra.  