State v. Maida

• Decision Date: 11 October 1915
• Citation: 29 Del. 40,96 A. 207
• Court: Court of General Sessions of Delaware
• Parties: STATE v. ANTHONY MAIDA

96 A. 207

29 Del. 40

STATE v. ANTHONY MAIDA

Court of General Sessions of Delaware, New Castle County

October 11, 1915

Court of General Sessions, New Castle County, September Term, 1915.

INDICTMENT FOR SODOMY, No. 93, September Term, 1915.

Anthony Maida was charged in the indictment for sodomy, alleged to have been committed by the use of the mouth, in the act of copulation.

On motion to quash the indictment on the ground that the offense as charged did not constitute sodomy or the crime against nature. Denied.

Motion to quash the indictment denied.

Armon D. Chaytor, Jr., Deputy Attorney General, for the state.

David J. Reinhardt for defendant.

Judges CONRAD and HEISEL sitting.

OPINION

CONRAD, J.

The indictment charges sodomy and alleges that defendant was guilty of the crime against nature by use of the mouth in the act of copulation.

The defendant is indicted under Section 7 Chapter 153, Revised Code 1915, which says "Whoever shall commit the crime against nature shall be deemed guilty of felony." The crime against nature and sodomy seem to be synonymous, but neither is defined by our statute.

The early case of Rex v. Jacobs, Crown cases, 331, held that inserting the private parts in the mouth was not sodomy. Most of the text-writers cite that case as authoritative, but the recent decisions of courts in this country tend to the contrary.

In State v. Start (1913) 65 Ore. 178, 132 P. 512, 46 L R. A. (N.S.) 266, the Supreme Court of Oregon discusses the subject fully. It quotes the common-law definition of the crime against nature to be "All unnatural carnal copulation whether with men or beast," and holds that it is self-evident that the use of any unnatural opening for sexual copulation is against the design of the human body, and that an unnatural coition takes place in annum or os, as the moral filthiness and iniquity against which the statute is aimed is the same in both cases.

The case of State v. Fenner (1914) 166 N.C. 247, 80 S.E 970, the Supreme Court of North Carolina says, "We are satisfied that, if the baser form of the abominable and disgusting crime against nature (i.e., by the mouth) had prevailed in the days of the early common law, the courts of England could well have held that that form of the offense was included in the current definition of the crime of sodomy," and the court held that carnal knowledge of another by inserting the private parts in...