State v. Morin

• Citation: 136 A. 808
• Parties: STATE v. MORIN.
• Decision Date: 31 March 1927
• Court: Supreme Judicial Court of Maine (US)

136 A. 808

STATE

v. MORIN.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

March 31, 1927.

Exceptions from Superior Court, Androscoggin County, at Law.

Marie Morin was tried for permitting tenement under her control to be used for. prostitution, and she brings exceptions. Exceptions overruled, and judgment for the State.

Argued before WILSON, C. J., and PHILBROOK, DUNN, BARNES, and BASSETT, JJ.

Benjamin L. Berman, Co. Atty., of Lewiston, for the State.

George S. McCarty, and Louis J. Brann, both of Lewiston, for respondent.

BARNES, J. In order to decrease the spread of so-called sexual diseases, chapter 112 of the Public Laws of 1919 enacted that it should be unlawful for any person to permit any place, structure, building, or conveyance owned by him or under his control to be used for the purpose of prostitution, lewdness, or assignation, with knowledge or reasonable cause to know that the same is, or is to be, used for such purpose. And at the October term for the year 1926, at Auburn, trial was had of one Madame Morin, on an indictment, presenting that on August 21, of that year, this Madame Morin, at Lewiston, in our state, did permit a certain tenement, occupied by her, and then and there under her control, to be used by one Mademoiselle Berube for the purpose of prostitution, setting out what is called in law scienter, by further presenting that Madame Morin then had reasonable cause to know that the tenement so occupied by her and under her control was then and there used for such purpose of prostitution.

"When knowledge is part of a statutory description of an offense it must be alleged, to inform the accused of the exact charge against him, and enable the court to determine whether crime is alleged, and on proof to render judgment" (State v. Perley, 86 Me. 427, 30 A. 74, 41 Am. St. Rep. 564), "to the end that if he be again prosecuted for the same offense he may plead the former conviction in bar" (State v. Lashus, 79 Me. 541, 11 A. 604).

It was incumbent on the grand jury, in preparing a true bill, on consideration of an act forbidden by the statute above cited, to allege guilty knowledge on the part of the respondent; and the state's attorney was in duty bound to present the evidence available, tending to show her guilty knowledge, to the extent, at least, that she had "reasonable cause to know" that Mademoiselle Berube, on the day named, used the tenement occupied and under the control of madame, the respondent, for the purpose of prostitution.

After the trial jury had been impaneled and had heard the technical language of the indictment read, it became the duty of the state's attorney, as the lawfully empowered officer of that court, to state to the jury, if he deemed it advisable, what was the nature of the crime charged in the indictment, what he purposed to bring before them as evidence of the commission of that crime, and what portions of such evidence should by them, under their oaths, be considered with relation to the allegation of guilty knowledge on the part of the respondent, or, even less than this, what evidence he had to present that the respondent had reason to know of the use of her tenement as a place of prostitution.

It is assumed that, in his opening address to the jury, the state's attorney directed the attention of the jury to the allegation that prostitution, on the part of Mademoiselle Berube, in the tenement occupied and controlled by the respondent, committed on the 21st of August, 1926, was knowingly permitted by the respondent, and, somewhere in the line of his opening statement, the state's attorney, gallantly characterizing mademoiselle as a "young lady," said:

"The state will offer evidence to show that on various occasions the respondent counseled and urged the young lady to engage,"

—whereupon counsel for the respondent interposed an objection. The judge allowed the attorney to proceed, and entered and allowed the first exception of counsel, and at a later stage of the case counsel specified that his objection was to statements of the attorney as to evidence of conduct or knowledge of respondent, and to any evidence of such conduct or knowledge, or reasonable cause for knowledge, exhibited or had by the respondent, on any day other than the 21st of August, 1926, the day set out in the indictment.

Counsel further alleges grievance, by taking his second exception to the instruction of the judge:

"The date has to be alleged in the indictment as of some particular date, but if any other time—provided the incident, the offense, is identified—any other time is shown it is sufficient."

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