State v. Tilden

• Decision Date: 05 May 1914
• Docket Number: 11,720.
• Citation: 79 Wash. 472,140 P. 680
• Court: Washington Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE v. TILDEN.

140 P. 680

79 Wash. 472

STATE v. TILDEN.

No. 11,720.

Supreme Court of Washington

May 5, 1914

Department 2. Appeal from Superior Court, Stevens County.

Marshall G. Tilden was convicted of seduction, and he appeals. Affirmed.

W. C. Stayt, of Colville, and Osee W. Noble, of Kettle Falls, for appellant.

J. B Slater and J. A. Rochford, both of Colville, for the State.

MORRIS J.

The appellant was charged with the crime of seduction, committed on the 22d day of July, 1912, and appeals from a conviction. The prosecuting witness testified that the first act of sexual intercourse took place on the 15th day of June, the second act three or four days later, the third some days still later, and the fourth on the day alleged in the information. At the close of the state's case, the state on motion of appellant, was required to elect upon which one of the acts it relied for a conviction, and elected to stand on the act of July 22d, as alleged in the information.

The error urged most strongly by appellant is that, the state having selected the act of July 22d, it was error for the court to permit evidence of the previous acts, as testified to by the prosecutrix, and that the same should have been withdrawn from the jury. Offenses involving carnal intercourse of the sexes furnish a well-recognized exception to the general rule excluding evidence of other like crimes. For a reason peculiar to those crimes, the rule has been most liberally extended, until it may be safely asserted that, where the charge is made of the commission of any of the crimes known as sexual offenses, evidence of prior acts of the same character is admissible, even though such prior act is itself a crime. State v. Wood, 33 Wash. 290, 74 P. 380; State v. Fetterly, 33 Wash. 600, 74 P. 810; State v. Osborne, 39 Wash. 548, 81 P. 1096; State v. Sargent, 62 Wash. 692, 114 P. 868, 35 L. R A. (N. S.) 173; Elliott, Evidence, § 3149; Underhill, Crim. Ev. § 326; People v. Molineaux, 168 N.Y. 264, 61 N.E. 286, 62 L. R. A. 193, note on page 331, where the subject is exhaustively treated.

Appellant cites State v. Dacke, 59 Wash 238, 109 P. 1050, 30 L. R. A. (N. S.) 173, in support of a contention that, since the prosecuting witness surrendered her virtue to appellant on June 15th, she was not a 'female of previous chaste character,' within the meaning of the statute, on July 22d, the day charged in the information. The Dacke Case has no application here. The defendant there was charged with an offense committed on June 30, 1909, under a statute which went into effect on June 8, 1909. The evidence showed numerous acts of sexual intercourse between the prosecuting witness and the defendant, beginning in November, 1908, and it was held that, since the defendant was charged with an offense committed on June 30th under a statute requiring that the female against whom the offense was committed should be of previous chaste character, because of prior acts of sexual intercourse, the prosecutrix was not of previous chaste character on June 8th when the law went into effect. In other words, the defendant being charged with an offense under the new statute, it must be shown that the female named in the information was within the description of the statute, and was of previous chaste character on June 8th, the day when the new statute became effective. No such question is involved in this case, and defendant here cannot shield himself under the plea that,...