People v. Plath

• Decision Date: 08 December 1885
• Citation: 3 N.E. 790,100 N.Y. 590
• Parties: PEOPLE v. PLATH.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

100 N.Y. 590

3 N.E. 790

PEOPLE

v.PLATH.¹

Court of Appeals of New York.

Filed December 8, 1885.

William F. Howe, for appellant.

De Lancey Nicoll, Asst. Dist. Atty., for the People.

RUGER, C. J.

The defendant was indicted, and upon trial convicted, of the crime of abduction, in that he, ‘with force and arms, feloniously did take one Katie Kavanaugh for the purpose of prostitution; she, the said Katie Kavanaugh, being then and there a female under the age of sixteen years.’ It was essential to the support of this conviction that the people show, not only a taking by the defendant within the meaning of the statute, but also that such taking was for the purpose of prostitution. Penal Code, § 282, as amended by section 2, c. 46, Laws 1884. If the evidence establishes only a taking, and fails to show that it was for the prohibited purpose, it is insufficient to sustain the cinviction; and so proof of the fact that the person of the female was used for purposes of prostitution, without proof of the abduction, would not bring the accused within the condemnation of the statute. It is elementary, when a specific intent is required to make an act an offense, that the doing of the act does not raise a presumption that it was done with the specific intent. Lawson, Ev. 472. Neither can a conviction under this act be sustained upon the unsupported evidence of the female abducted. Pen. Code, § 283. In cases where corroboration is required, there has been some diversity of opinion in the authorities as to the particular facts which should be corroborated, and the extent of the corroboration needed, in order to comply with the rule; but it is now concededto be the general rule that it should tend to show the material facts necessary to establish the commission of a crime, and the identity of the person committing it. When an offense was formerly proven by accomplices it was the usual practice of trial courts to advise an acquittal unless such evidence was in some respects corroborated by other testimony, (although at common law a conviction upon the evidence of the accomplice alone was sustainable.) In those cases the extent and degree of corroboration rested in the discretion of the trial court, and necessarily varied according to the circumstances of the case. Although such cases are not strictly analogous to those where corroboration is required by statute, they yet furnish some help in determining the degree of proof required in the latter case. The rule as to the corroboration of an accomplice is stated, in Roscoe, Crim. Ev. 122, as follows: ‘That there should be some fact deposed to, independently altogether of the evidence of the accomplice, which, taken by itself, leads to the inference, not only that a crime has been committed, but that the prisoner is implicated in it.’ Russell, Cr. 962, says ‘that it is not sufficient to corroborate an accomplice as to the facts of the case generally, but that he must be corroborated as to some material fact or facts which go to prove that the prisoner was connected with the crime charged.’ 1 Greenl. Ev. § 381, lays down the rule, as held by some, that it is ‘essential that there should be corroborating proof that the prisoner actually participated in the offense, and that, when several prisoners are to be tried, confirmation is to be required as to all of them before all can be safely convicted; the confirmation of the witness as to the commission of the crime being regarded as no confirmation at all as it respects the prisoner.’

The policy of the statute under consideration would seem to forbid the conviction of a person of the crime of abduction upon the unsupported evidence of the subject of the crime, and a conviction founded upon the evidence of the abducted female alone, as to either of the elements constituting the crime, would be contrary to its implied prohibition. Such evidence must, therefore, tend to prove each of the facts constituting the crime, for otherwise a person might be convicted of an offense as to one of whose elements there existed no proof except that of the alleged abducted female. If the corroborative evidence goes to the support of the alleged purpose alone, it is apparent that there is no legal proof of the commission of a crime, and it would be the same if the corroboration was confined to a support of the taking alone, and the proof as to the purpose was uncorroborated. It is not indispensable that such corroboration should be furnished by positive and direct evidence, but proof of circumstances legitimately tending to show the existence of the material facts will be sufficient to authorize a conviction. In one form or the other, however, proof must be given, aside from that of the female, tending to establish the commission of a crime, and that it was perpetrated by the person accused, before a conviction can be lawfully had.

An examination of the proof in this case fails to disclose any evidence corroborating the testimony of the female alleged to have been abducted as to the participation of the defendant in the abduction, assuming that her evidence established a taking within the meaning of the statute. We have, however, grave...