State v. Herren

Citation94 S.E. 698,175 N. C. 754
Decision Date23 December 1917
Docket Number(No. 537.)
CourtUnited States State Supreme Court of North Carolina
PartiesSTATE . v. HERREN.

94 S.E. 698
(175 N. C. 754)

STATE .
v.
HERREN.

(No. 537.)

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

Dec. 23, 1917.


Appeal from Superior Court, Buncombe County; Lane, Judge.

John R. Herren was convicted of contracting a marriage outside of the state, bigamous if contracted within it, and thereafter cohabiting with the person in the state, and he appeals. No error.,

See, also, 92 S. E. 596.

J. W. Haynes and Mark W. Brown, both of Asheville, for appellant.

The Attorney General and R. H. Sykes, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

CLARK, C. J. The defendant was convicted for thq violation of the following paragraph which was inserted as an amendment in Revisal, § 3361, by chapter 26, Laws 1913:

"If any person, being married, shall contract a marriage with any other person outside of this state, which marriage would be punishable as bigamous if contracted within this state, and shall thereafter cohabit with such person in this state, he shall be guilty of a felony and punishable as in cases of bigamy."

On the trial the defendant admitted that he was first married to Lizzie V. Hunsucker in this state, who is still living, and that he afterwards obtained a divorce in Georgia and was married to Stella Taylor. The court ruled that the admission in regard to the divorce was a matter of defense to be proven by the defendant. He then put in evidence the transcript of a record from the superior court of Georgia purporting to be the record

[94 S.E. 699]

of the divorce proceedings of John R. Herren v. Lizzie V. Herren, and also certain sections of the laws of Georgia in regard to divorce, and rested.

The state offered evidence that the defendant had never been a resident of Georgia, but had maintained his residence in this state; that he had married said Stella in Georgia, and afterwards removed to this state, and they had lived as man and wife in Asheville. The defendant then offered depositions that he was a resident of Georgia for 12 months preceding the beginning of divorce proceedings as required by the laws of that state.

Exceptions 1, 2, and 3 raise the question whether a decree of divorce can be attacked in a criminal action for bigamy in a state other than that in which the divorce was secured. In Haddock v. Haddock, 201 TJ. S. 562, 26 Sup. Ct. 525, 50 L. Ed. 867, 5 Ann. Cas. 1, after an exhaustive review of the law in the several states as to the faith and credit to be given to a decree of divorce in another state, Chief Justice White said:

"The mere domicile within the state of one party to the marriage does not give the courts of that state jurisdiction to render a decree of divorce enforceable in all the * * * states by virtue of the full faith and credit clause of the federal Constitution against a nonresident who did not appear and was only constructively served with notice of the pendency of the action."

Chief Justice White, in classifying the states in respect to the degree of credit which they accord to decrees of divorce in other states, said that he would classify North Carolina among the states "which decline, even upon principles of comity, to recognize and enforce as to their own citizens, within their own borders, decrees of divorce rendered in other states, when the court rendering the same had jurisdiction over only one of the parties, " but for a doubt derived from a suggestion in Bidwell v. Bidwell, 139 N. C. 402, 52 S. E. 55, 2 L. R. A. (N. S.) 324, 111 Am. St. Rep. 797. An examination of that case does not show that North Carolina should be taken out of the class of states which decline to recognize the validity of a divorce rendered in a court which had jurisdiction over only one of the parties. In that case the decree was rendered in North Dakota, where both parties appeared personally and by counsel.

In the Bidwell Case our court said:

"Where neither party has a domicile in the state of the forum, such court having no jurisdiction of the subject-matter of the controversy, a decree of divorce is void, though both parties may have appeared, and voluntarily submitted themselves to the jurisdiction of the court."

The suggestion referred to by Chief Justice White as having created a doubt in his mind is the following paragraph in Bidwell v. Bidwell:

"The better doctrine, however, now seems to be that, where the domicile of the defendant has been acquired in good faith, and not in fraud or violation of some law of a former domicile, a divorce of this kind should be recognized as binding everywhere, certainly within the jurisdiction of the United States or any one of them."

But that suggestion does not conflict with the contention of the state in this case that the domicile in Georgia set up by the defendant was not a bona fide domicile, but was obtained by frSud, and not acquired in good faith, as the defendant's wife was only constructively served with process by publication. In the Bidwell Case it is laid down that...

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