State v. Cutshall

• Decision Date: 23 December 1891
• Citation: 14 S.E. 107,109 N.C. 764
• Parties: STATE v. CUTSHALL.
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court

14 S.E. 107

109 N.C. 764

STATE v. CUTSHALL.

Supreme Court of North Carolina

December 23, 1891

Appeal from criminal court, Mecklenburg county; O. P. MEARES, Judge.

Indictment of W. T. Cutshall for fornication and adultery. Verdict of guilty. Defendant appeals. Affirmed.

J. A Forney, for appellant.

The Attorney General, for the State.

CLARK J.

The special verdict finds that the defendant, not being legally married to his co-defendant, (who was not on trial,) lived with her for years as man and wife. The interesting question is not now before us whether he is not also guilty of bigamy when he has gone through the ceremony of marriage with her in another state, having at the time a lawful wife living. The state has chosen to prosecute him for fornication and adultery. The court below adjudged him guilty on the special verdict, and the appeal presents the correctness of that ruling for review.

It is true that fornication and adultery is a joint act. It must be shown that two persons--a male and a female--have habitually indulged in unlawful sexual intercourse; but it is not essential to show that both parties had a guilty intent. It is sufficient if both parties participated in the unlawful sexual intercourse. This is demonstrated frequently in practice by placing one defendant on trial when nothing need be proven as to the other defendant, who is not on trial beyond the incidental fact that it is shown as against the party on trial that the unlawful and habitual sexual intercourse existed between them. Nor can it make any difference that here it affirmatively appears that the party not on trial had no guilty intent, for, if the guilty intent of both parties is essential to the conviction of the party on trial, the burden would be on the state to prove it. But in truth all that is necessary to be shown (when only one is on trial) is that there was illicit and habitual sexual intercourse by the party on trial with the person of the opposite sex charged in the indictment. There is nothing in this which conflicts with the authority of State v Mainor, 28 N.C. 340, (though even that is some what questioned in State v. Rinehart, 106 N.C. 787, 11 S.E. Rep. 512,) which holds that, if one is put on trial and acquitted, the other cannot be convicted. The reason given for this (if valid) is that the verdict of acquittal establishes against the state that there was no illicit sexual intercourse between the parties, or, in the words of the decision, "that there has been no joint act." But there may, without countervailing that authority, well be, as in this case, an unlawful sexual intercourse wherein one party has a guilty intent and the other, through ignorance of the facts, does not have such intent. The intercourse may be illicit as to both, but perhaps criminal as to one only. It would be strange, indeed, if the defendant, who has violated the law flagrantly and intentionally for years by living as man and wife with a woman he knew was not his wife, should not be guilty of the offense of fornication and adultery because he added to his offense the fraud of making a good woman falsely believe that she was his wife. This case also differs from State v. Mainor, in that here neither were both parties on trial, nor had one been previously tried and acquitted. In Alonzo v. State, 15 Tex.App. 378, it is said: "While it is true that to constitute adultery there must be a joint physical act, it is certainly not true that there must be a joint criminal intent. The bodies must concur in the act, but the minds may not. While the criminal intent may exist in the mind of one of the parties to the physical act, there may be no such intent in the mind of the other party. One may be guilty, the other innocent, and yet the joint physical act necessary to constitute adultery was complete. Thus, if one of the parties was at the time of committing the physical act insane, certainly such party has committed no crime; but it certainly cannot be contended that the other party, who was sane, has committed no crime. So, if one of the parties was mistaken as to a matter of fact, after exercising due care to ascertain the truth in relation to such fact, which fact, had it been true, would have rendered the alleged criminal act legal and innocent, the party so acting under such mistake of fact would be innocent of crime. But suppose the other party was not mistaken as to such fact, but, on the contrary, well knew the true fact which rendered the connection illicit, would this party be regarded as guilty of no offense because the mistaken party was innocent? Suppose a father and his daughter are indicted for incestuous intercourse with each other. Upon the trial of the daughter it is conclusively proved that at the time of committing the physical act she was an idiot, or that she was wholly ignorant of the relationship between herself and her father, without any fault of hers; of course, in either of these cases she would be acquitted. Would it not be monstrous to hold that because of her innocence the beastly father must go unpunished for his unnatural crime? Such cannot be the law, and such, we believe, is not the law as declared by the weight of authority." In Missouri it has been held, in a case of incest, where one party had knowledge of the relationship and the other was ignorant of it, that the former may be convicted and the latter acquitted. State v. Ellis, 74 Mo. 385. Bish. St. Crimes, § 660, says that, when the woman is too drunk to give consent, the man may be prosecuted for rape or adultery, at the option of the prosecuting power. In 2 Whart. Crim. Law, § 1737a, it is also said that the woman may be innocent because irresponsible, (for any cause,) though the man may be guilty. To same effect, State v. Sanders, 30 Iowa, 582; State v. Donovan, 61 Iowa, 278, 16 N.W. 130; Com. v. Bakeman, 131 Mass. 577.

The fact is not to be lost sight of that in an indictment for fornication and adultery the state is not called on to prove a criminal intent. The case is made out when it is shown that a man and woman, not being married to each other, habitually engaged in sexual intercourse. That this is "lewd and lascivious" is not required to be shown, but is an inference of law from the facts proved, as with "malice" in indictments for homicide, even though there an intent must be charged. As to this offense no intent is required to be charged or proven. Indeed, when the habitual sexual intercourse is proved, the law casts the burden of showing marriage on the defendants, (State v McDuffie, 107 N.C. 885, 12 S.E. Rep. 83; State v. Peeples, 108 N.C. 769, 13 S.E. Rep. 8,) both as to this offense and in bastardy proceedings. Either party may avoid such legal conclusion by showing that he or she was insane, idiotic, or without fault ignorant of the facts. But such defense of a want of intent cannot inure to the benefit of the other party who had the intent. It is otherwise, under State v. Mainor, supra, if the act of unlawful sexual intercourse between the two which it is incumbent upon the state to show is found in the negative as to one of the two parties charged. This distinction must exist--(1) Because in the nature of things the state can show no intent except that of an habitual engaging in unlawful sexual intercourse by the parties charged. (2) If the state must show the guilty intent beyond the intent to do the act, the parties not being married to each other, those who lived in illegal habitual sexual intercourse, believing it to be lawful, as Mormons, free-lovers, and the like, would not be indictable. (3) A party who lived in such habitual adulterous intercourse with an idiot or insane person, or who might induce another person to go through the ceremony of marriage before one who was not authorized to celebrate it by falsely pretending to the other party that the celebrant was a proper officer, would be guilty of no offense. It would always be easy in indictments for this offense to show a pretended ceremony before some one not an officer, and that the woman believed him to be such, and neither party (if this were law) could be convicted. The man could thus have the benefits of matrimony without its responsibility as to offspring or the public. In the present case...