State v. Howard

• Decision Date: 23 February 1915
• Docket Number: No. 18635.,18635.
• Citation: 175 S.W. 58,264 Mo. 386
• Parties: STATE v. HOWARD
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

175 S.W. 58

264 Mo. 386

STATE v. HOWARD

No. 18635.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 2.

February 23, 1915.

Rehearing Denied March 30, 1915.

Appeal from St. Louis Circuit Court; Wm. M. Kinsey, Judge. Charles B. Howard was convicted of seduction, and he appeals. Reversed and remanded.

The grand jury of the city of St. Louis returned an indictment charging defendant with having seduced and debauched, under promise of marriage, one Lundy King, an unmarried female, as prohibited by section 4478, R. S. 1909. A trial in the circuit court of said city resulted in defendant's conviction, and he appeals.

Among the grounds upon which a reversal is sought is the contention that the evidence is not sufficient to support the conviction. A part of this assignment is the insistence that, if guilty at all, the crime was committed in St. Louis county, and not in St. Louis city, where defendant was indicted and convicted. The testimony of prosecutrix tends to prove that she became acquainted with defendant in July, 1911; that he called on her at intervals of two or three weeks until the latter part of January, 1912; when, on one Saturday night in the city of St. Louis, he offered to marry her if she would have sexual intercourse with him. She states that she rejected this proposal at that time, but on the following evening she accompanied defendant to a point in St. Louis county where he had been engaged in building a house. Upon entering this house his proposal of marriage was renewed, and, relying upon that proposal, and the one made the night before in St. Louis city, she yielded to defendant. About a week later defendant called on her in the city of St. Louis, and, because (as she says) she loved him and thought he intended to marry her, she again allowed him to have sexual intercourse with her. No time was fixed for the proposed marriage, but the illicit intercourse continued some months; prosecutrix finally becoming pregnant. Prosecutrix testified that she had never sustained sexual relations with any person prior to the time she yielded to defendant.

Hans Wulff and John A. Porter, both of St. Louis, for appellant. John T. Barker, Atty. Gen., and Lee B. Ewing, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

I. Seduce.

BROWN, J.

after stating the facts as above). [1] On this showing, if it be conceded that prosecutrix was seduced by defendant, the issue arises as to where that crime was committed. Did each act of sexual intercourse constitute a separate seduction, or was the crime committed only in St. Louis county, where the first act of copulation took place? This issue depends for its solution upon a correct construction of the words "seduce and debauch," as found in section 4478, supra. The learned Attorney General relies for affirmance in part upon the case of State v. McClain, 137 Mo. 307, 38 S. W. 906, wherein it was held that a man who had sexual intercourse with his female ward in two different counties while she was under his care and protection could be prosecuted in the county where the second act of illicit sexual intercourse took place. That case is not in point here, because the statute denouncing the defilement of wards (section 4479, R. S. 1909) is quite unlike the seduction statute now under consideration. The statute prohibiting the defilement of wards does not require the ward to be chaste, or even to be of good repute, to render the guardian or other person to whose protection she has been confided guilty, if he carnally know her. The well-settled rule is that the unchastity of a female under 18 years of age is no defense to a prosecution for her defilement by her guardian, or other person to whose care she has been confided. State v. Strattman, 100 Mo. 540, 13 S. W. 814; State v. Summar, 143 Mo. 220, loc. cit. 231, 45 S. W. 254; and State v. Nibarger, 255 Mo. 289, 164 S. W. 453. Such is not the construction of the seduction statute where prior unchastity of the prosecutrix may be shown as a defense to the charge. State v. Long, 257 Mo. loc. cit. 225. 165 S. W. 748, and cases there cited.

The law books contain many definitions of the word "seduce," which, no doubt, arise from the varying phraseology of the statutes of the several states where that act is denounced as a crime. A very clear definition of the word is found in State v. Long, 238 Mo. 383, loc. cit. 390, 141 S. W. 1099. As used in section 4478, R. S. 1909, "seduce" is not a technical word, and should be construed in its "plain or ordinary and usual sense." Section 8057, R. S. 1909. No better definition of the word "seduce" can be given than that found in Webster's New International Dictionary, to wit: "To induce to surrender chastity." It is too plain to admit of controversy that chastity must exist before it can be surrendered or destroyed. There may be a pollution of the mind without seduction, but there can be no seduction under section 4478, supra, without sexual intercourse. The word "debauch," as used in that statute, has been construed to mean sexual intercourse or carnal knowledge. State v. Reeves, 97 Mo. 668, 10 S. W. 841, 10 Am. St. Rep. 349; State v. Marshall, 137 Mo. loc. cit. 468 and 473, 36 S. W. 619, 39 S. W. 63. That definition seems to be correct, but, as the word "seduce" necessarily includes the act of illegal sexual intercourse, it is doubtful if the word "debauch" adds anything to the meaning of this statute.

The words "of good repute," as used in our seduction statute, cast upon the state the burden of proving that a prosecutrix at the time of her seduction possessed a good reputation for chastity among those by whom she is known. It seems to have been the purpose of this statute to restrict its protecting influence to females "of good repute."

It being perfectly clear that the crime of seduction cannot be committed upon a female who is not at the time chaste, and as prosecutrix was rendered unchaste by the act of coition which she admits first took place in St. Louis county, the subsequent act committed in St. Louis city about one week thereafter did not amount to seduction. We do not wish to be understood as holding that a woman once seduced cannot thereafter reform and re-enter upon such a life of chastity and rectitude that she will again be under the protection of the seduction statute. The law on this point is quite fully discussed in State v. Knutson, 91 Iowa, 549, 60 N. W. 129, and People v. Clark, 33 Mich. loc. cit. 117, but there is no such issue in this case.

While our seduction statute is very unlike section 4479, supra, relating to the defilement of wards, it is very similar in one respect to section 4472, R. S. 1909, relating to the carnal knowledge of unmarried females of previous chaste character, in that both of these statutes...