State v. Vredenburg
| Decision Date | 01 April 1941 |
| Citation | 19 A.2d 414 |
| Parties | STATE v. VREDENBURG. |
| Court | New Hampshire Supreme Court |
Transferred from Superior Court, Hillsborough County; Lorimer, Judge.
Edward P. Vredenburg was convicted under statute against committing any unnatural and lascivious act with another person. A motion to quash was denied subject to the defendant's exception.
Transferred.
Exception overruled.
Indictment, under P.L., c. 386, § 9. A motion to quash was denied subject to the defendant's exception. As grounds of the motion, it avers that the defendant had been indicted for the same offence committed with the same person at another time, that the indictment is indefinite, and that it does not set forth an offence under the statute.
J. Vincent Broderick, Co. Sol., of Manchester, for the State.
Nicholas J. Costakis, of Manchester, for defendant.
I. One indictment alleged an offence committed about six months before a like offence charged in the other indictment. The offences were separate although committed with the same person, and are not to be regarded as a single act extending during the period between them. The statute is directed at acts without reference to habitual conduct. Repeated violations constitute distinct offences.
II. The allegations of the indictment are sufficiently definite and bring it within the statute. The common law limitation of application of the offence is one of degree rather than character, and of special rather than generic differentiation. No intention to observe the narrow common law rule is to be ascribed to the legislature. The fact that the offence at common law was a felony and hence punishable by death meets any presumption that the statute is to be tested by that law.
By the better, if not great weight of, authority similar statutes are construed to be more comprehensive than the common law in the scope of the conduct prohibited. Glover v. State, 179 Ind. 459, 101 N.E. 629, 45 L.R.A.,N.S., 473; State v. Vicknair, 52 La.Ann.1921, 28 So. 273; State v. Maida, 6 Boyce 40, 29 Del. 40, 96 A. 207; Honselman v. People, 168 Ill. 172, 48 N.E. 304; State v. Wedemeyer, 65 Or. 198, 132 P. 518; Herring v. State, 119 Ga. 709, 46 S.E. 876; People v. Hodgkin, 94 Mich. 27, 53 N.W. 794, 34 Am.St.Rep. 321.
Exception overruled.
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State v. Desilets
...acts, R.L. c. 449, § 9, is more comprehensive in the scope of the conduct prohibited than the common law crime of sodomy. State v. Vredenburg, 91 N.H. 372, 19 A.2d 414. The defendant contends, however, that there can be no valid conviction because Laws 1949, c. 314, an act relating to the c......
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