State v. Frey
| Decision Date | 09 June 1899 |
| Docket Number | 11,716 - (222) |
| Citation | 79 N.W. 518,76 Minn. 526 |
| Parties | STATE v. GEORGE M. FREY |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Defendant was indicted in the district court for Hennepin county of the crime of carnally knowing and abusing a female child under the age of 16 years. On the trial before Lancaster, J., then a judge of said court, and a jury, the state produced the prosecutrix as a witness and desired to prove its case by her. To this defendant objected on the ground that she was at that time his wife, and offered to introduce evidence showing that fact. The court, assuming the marriage to have been proved, denied the motion of defendant to exclude her testimony, and permitted her to testify. The jury rendered a verdict of guilty. A motion for a new trial was made before Simpson, J., who denied the motion, and certified the case to the supreme court for its determination of the question, among others, whether the court erred in admitting the testimony of the prosecutrix. Reversed.
Wife as Witness against Husband -- Crime before Marriage.
G.S 1894, § 5662, to the effect that a husband cannot be examined as a witness for or against his wife without her consent, nor a wife for or against her husband without his consent, but this prohibition does not apply to a criminal proceeding for a crime committed by one against the other, construed, and held, that a wife is not a competent witness for the state in a prosecution against her husband for a crime against her committed before their marriage.
W. B. Douglas, Attorney General, and C. W. Somerby, Assistant Attorney General, for the State.
Mark L. Dougherty, for defendant.
The defendant was indicted and placed upon trial on the charge of carnally knowing a female child under the age of 16 years. The state called the prosecutrix as a witness against the defendant, and proposed to prove the commission of the crime by her. Thereupon the defendant objected to her proposed testimony, on the ground that she was his wife, and in support of his objection duly offered to prove by competent evidence that since the commission of the alleged offense he and the prosecutrix were duly and in all respects lawfully married. The trial court ruled that for the purposes of the trial the marriage of the parties would be assumed, that the offer be taken as proved, and that the prosecutrix was a competent witness against the defendant, even if she were then his wife. The defendant's objection was accordingly overruled, and the witness gave testimony tending to establish the defendant's guilt. She was, at the time the act was committed, between 14 and 15 years of age, but more than 15 years old at the time of the marriage. The defendant was found guilty. The court denied his motion for a new trial, and at his request, with the consent of the state, certified to this court the question of the competency of the prosecutrix as such witness, with other questions.
An answer to the question involves a construction of G.S. 1894, § 5662, which, so far as here material, is this:
"A husband cannot be examined for or against his wife, without her consent, nor a wife for or against her husband, without his consent; * * * but this exception does not apply to * * * a criminal action or proceeding for a crime committed by one against the other."
The proposition that a guilty man may defeat the ends of justice by marrying, after the act, the principal witness for the state, seems at first blush to be contrary to the dictates of common sense and common justice; but, when the origin and purpose of the statute are considered, it will be found that the statute rests upon considerations of sound public policy which were recognized and enforced at common law, and, further, that the statute does not admit of any reasonable construction which does not render the wife incompetent as a witness against her husband when charged with an offense against her before the marriage. The common-law rule was that husband or wife could not testify for or against each other in any legal proceeding to which the other was a party. The rule rests on principles of public policy, which require that confidence between husband and wife should be conserved to the fullest extent, and it is enforced without reference to when the marriage relation began. This general rule of the common law was subject to the exception that, in all cases of personal injuries committed by the husband or wife against the other, the injured party was a competent witness against the other. The exception was allowed from necessity, for the protection of the parties, especially the wife, in the marriage relation, and partly for the sake of public...
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