People v. Van Alstyne

• Decision Date: 15 January 1895
• Citation: 39 N.E. 343,144 N.Y. 361
• Parties: PEOPLE v. VAN ALSTYNE.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

144 N.Y. 361

39 N.E. 343

PEOPLE

v.VAN ALSTYNE.

Court of Appeals of New York.

Jan. 15, 1895.

Appeal from supreme court, general term, Fifth department.

George R. Van Alstyne was convicted of seduction under promise of marriage, and from a judgment of the general term (29 N. Y. Supp. 542) affirming the judgment of conviction, appeals. Reversed.

H. B. Hallock, for appellant.

Howard H. Widener, for the People.

PECKHAM, J.

The defendant has been convicted of the crime of seduction under a promise of marriage. It is urged in his behalf that the evidence on the trial, as given by the prosecutrix herself, simply shows the ant to marry the prosecutrix only in case she became pregnant as a result of that intercourse. It is then insisted that if the promise were of that nature it was insufficient upon which to base a conviction under the statute. We think the defendant's counsel is right in the construction to be given the evidence in the case. On carefully reading the testimony of the prosecutrix, we feel confident that the only promise which she proves on the part of the defendant was the conditional one to marry her in case she became pregnant. She does state in one portion of her evidence an unconditional promise, but she immediately follows it by the statement of the conditional one, and we think it obvious, from her whole evidence, that the conditional is really the only promise which she regards as made or which can reasonably be inferred. The evidence which she gave before the justice in the other proceeding, and which, in substance, she admitted, and which was proved upon this trial, shows that she regarded the promise as one made only in case she became pregnant. Assuming the promise was of such a nature, we are of the opinion that it was not of that kind contemplated by the statute. It was never intended to protect a woman who was willing to speculate upon the results of her intercourse with a man, and who only exacted as the price of her consent a promise on his part to marry her in case the intercourse resulted in her pregnancy. The conditional promise mentioned in Kenyon v. People, 26 N. Y. 203, is very different from the one here under discussion. It was an absolute promise to marry the prosecutrix if she would consent to have intercourse with him, and when she consented, and the intercourse took place, the promise became mutual, and the condition was performed. A promise on her part was implied from the fact that she yielded to the solicitations of the defendant, and, in...