Foley v. State
| Citation | 59 N.J.L. 1,35 A. 105 |
| Parties | FOLEY v. STATE. |
| Decision Date | 05 June 1896 |
| Court | New Jersey Supreme Court |
(Syllabus by the Court.)
Error to court of quarter sessions, Essex county; Kirkpatrick, S chalk, and Led with, Judges.
William B. Foley was convicted of fornication, and brings error. Affirmed.
Argued February term, 1896, before the CHIEF JUSTICE, and MAGIE, GARRISON, and DIXON, JJ.
Samuel Kalisch, for plaintiff in error.
Elvin W. Crane, for the State.
This writ has brought before the court a conviction of the plaintiff in error of the offense denounced in the supplement to the crimes act, enacted March 30, 1876. Supp. Revision, p. 192. As the only exception taken to the procedure of the trial relates to the proper exposition of the language of the statute in question, it is necessary that the section of the law to be construed should be recited. These are its terms, viz.: "That if any single man over the age of eighteen years, under promise of marriage, shall have sexual intercourse with any single female of good repute for chastity, under the age of twenty-one years, and she shall thereby become pregnant, any person so offending shall be guilty of a misdemeanor," etc.; "but in such cases the evidence of the female must be corroborated to the extent required in case of indictment for perjury." The state on this occasion made proof of all the statutory essentials of the offense charged, one of these being the "good repute for chastity" of the prosecutrix before and at the time of her seduction. In confutation of the evidence upon that subject, the defense offered to show that on two occasions prior to the time in question she had sexual intercourse with different men. This offer was overruled, and the single question now to be decided is with respect to the legal correctness of that judicial action. That the testimony thus excluded was illegal is, in the opinion of this court, entirely clear. We think it was illegitimate, because it bore no relation whatever to the issue then trying. By force of the statute that issue was whether the prosecutrix was "of good repute for chastity." The offer was to show the immaterial fact that she was not a chaste woman. But the crime consists, under the conditions stated, in the seduction of the woman, whether she be chaste or unchaste, provided she be chaste in public estimation. The discrimination to be made, in view of the act, between the really chaste and the reputedly chaste female, was briefly noticed in the...
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Bills v. State
... ... In such states the evidence must be confined to the ... general reputation of the prosecuting witness ... [119 N.E. 466] ... for chastity, evidence of specific acts being excluded ... State v. Bryan (1885), 34 Kan. 63, 8 P ... 260; Bowers v. State (1876), 29 Ohio St ... 542; Foley v. State (1896), 59 N.J.L. 1, 35 ... A. 105; Lyons v. State (1876), 52 Ind. 426; ... Williams v. State, ex rel. (1891), ... 3 Ind.App. 350, 29 N.E. 1079. In the case last cited it is ... said: "Under a statute like ours, using the word ... 'repute' instead of 'character,' specific ... acts of ... ...
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...It was the good repute for chastity and not the personal virtue of the female that was at issue. Zabriskie v. State, supra; Foley v. State, 59 N. J. Law, 1, 35 A. 105. One who is otherwise qualified, and who has been in such position that he would probably have heard comment had there been ......
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State v. Lodeserto
...the credibility of the prosecutrix. The questions were properly excluded. They were irrelevant to the issue being tried. Foley v. State, 59 N. J. Law, 1, 35 A. 105, affirmed 59 N. J. Law, 585, 39 A. 1113. They were not admissible on the theory of discrediting the witness. State v. Hendrick ......
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