State v. Sloan
| Citation | 55 Iowa 217,7 N.W. 516 |
| Parties | STATE OF IOWA v. SLOAN. |
| Decision Date | 14 December 1880 |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of Iowa |
Appeal from Harrison district court.
The defendant was convicted of the crime of bigamy. Judgment having been rendered upon the verdict, he appeals.Barnhart & Cadwell, for appellant.
J. F. McJunkin, Att'y Gen., for the State.
1. The defendant was indicted under section 4009 of the Code, which is in these words: “If any person who has a former husband or wife living marry another person, or continue to cohabit with such second husband or wife, in this state, he or she, except in the cases mentioned in the following section, is guilty of bigamy.” The indictment was found on the twenty-ninth day of August, 1879, and alleges, in substance, that the defendant, on the thirteenth day of August, 1872, being already married to one Nancy A. Conrad, who was still living, and was his lawful wife, wilfully, unlawfully, and feloniously married one Hattie Morris, in the county of Harrison, Iowa, and thereafter in said county, until the finding of the indictment, continued all the time to cohabit with her as his second wife. To the indictment the defendant demurred upon the ground that it did not appear that the alleged offence was committed within three years prior to the finding of the indictment. The court overruled the demurrer, and the defendant assigns the overruling thereof as error. As the second marriage took place more than three years prior to the finding of the indictment, it cannot be sustained, unless it be upon the ground that the defendant continued to cohabit with his second wife in this state until a time within three years prior to the time the indictment was found.
The defendant insists that the provision in respect to continued cohabitation in this state was designed to apply only to a case where the marriage took place elsewhere. The object of the statute, of course, is to define the offence. Now, the defendant's argument is that if the marriage takes place in this state the offence is complete as soon as the marriage takes place. The defence cannot be more than complete; hence, in a statute designed merely to define the offence, it would be absurd to define it as consisting not only in the marriage, but in the marriage and cohabitation. This theory is that the statute defines the offence as one which may be committed in two distinct ways; either-- First, by the marriage within the statute; or, second, (where it is not committed in the first way,) by continued cohabitation in the state after the marriage. The design of the statute, doubtless, was, as the defendant contends, to make continued cohabitation in this state, under a bigamous marriage contracted elsewhere, bigamy in this state. But we think that the statute means more than that. Cohabitation under a bigamous marriage, wherever it may have been...
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Chamberlain v. State
...406, 282 P. 257. In Iowa the courts also seem to agree with us in State v. Bennett, 31 Iowa 24; State v. Hazen, 39 Iowa 648; State v. Sloan, 55 Iowa 217, 7 N.W. 516; State v. Hughes, 58 Iowa 165, 11 N.W. 706, all cited in State v. Chambers, 87 Iowa 1, 53 N.W. 1090, 1091, 43 Am.St.Rep. 349, ......
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...of the defendant, testified "to prove the marriage between her and the defendant." This was held not to be error, citing State v. Sloan, 55 Iowa 217, 7 N.W. 516, and State Bennett, 31 Iowa 24. State v. Sloan, supra, was a bigamy case. The first wife testified over objection. The court witho......
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...the belief that a reasonable doubt had to be present in all their minds before they could acquit the defendant. He cites State v. Sloan, 55 Iowa 217, 7 N.W. 516, and State v. Stewart, 52 Iowa 284, 3 N.W. 99, as support for his contention. There the reference was to the 'minds of the whole j......
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