State v. Price

• Decision Date: 20 November 1912
• Citation: 157 Iowa 412,138 N.W. 520
• Parties: STATE v. PRICE.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

157 Iowa 412

138 N.W. 520

STATE

v.PRICE.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Nov. 20, 1912.

Appeal from District Court, Van Buren County; Francis M. Hunter, Judge.

The defendant was convicted of having committed the crime of seduction. He appeals. Affirmed.J. C. Mitchell, of Ottumwa, and Walker & McBeth, of Keosauqua, for appellant.

George Cosson, Atty. Gen., and John Fletcher, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

LADD, J.

Prosecutrix testified that the accused had sexual intercourse with her in the evening of December 16, 1910. She was then 16 years old, and he 18 or 19. She testified that he walked home with her frequently, had accompanied her to dances, and had been in her company on other occasions; that some time previous to the date named he had told her that he loved her and proposed marriage, which she had accepted; that he had hugged and kissed her whenever with her alone; that he so did and told her that he loved her on the way home on the night in question, and asked her to “let him do it,” assured her that it was not wrong, as they were to marry anyway, and finally said that he would marry her “if anything happened”; and that she yielded to his embraces after requiring him to repeat this last statement. On cross-examination she stated that but for this last promise she would not have submitted, and that it was what finally led her to yield.

[1][2] 1. Appellant complains of several instructions, in that they permitted conviction if intercourse were procured by protestations of love, deception, or other seductive arts, for that prosecutrix testified that the conditional promise of marriage was what finally induced her to yield, and there was no evidence of other seductive arts. But she did not say that this was the only influence operating on her will. For all that appears, she may not, and the jury might have found that she would not, have yielded had all protestations of love been omitted, or had he not insisted that, as they were engaged to marry, sexual indulgence would be no harm. This last, doubtless, was what the court alluded to as “other seductive arts,” and of which, contrary to appellant's contention, there was evidence. The mere fact that the promise to marry her if anything happened was the final argument which persuaded prosecutrix to yield did not eliminate from consideration the other influences which may have operated to overcome her scruples. Indeed, it is scarcely conceivable that a chaste woman could be induced to step aside from the path of virtue in the absence of all blandishments of love; and, even though a false promise may be essential to overcome her inclinations to virtue's side, other influences, such as protestations of love and artifices, such as assurances that there would be no harm because of an engagement, may have been quite as potential in accomplishing the seduction. If, then, by his protestations of love or other deception or other artifices, in connection with a conditional agreement to marry, or without this, the accused persuaded the prosecutrix to yield to his embraces, when but for such protestations or deception or other artifices she would not have done so, this was sufficient to sustain a finding of guilt, regardless of whether some of these or the conditional promise was what finally determined the issue. In other...