State v. Wyman
| Decision Date | 08 June 1934 |
| Citation | 173 A. 155,118 Conn. 501 |
| Court | Connecticut Supreme Court |
| Parties | STATE v. WYMAN. |
Appeal from Superior Court, Fairfield County; Carl Foster, Judge.
Information charging Frank W. Wyman with carnal abuse of a feeble-minded person, brought to the superior court in Fairfield county and tried to a jury. Verdict of guilty, motion to set aside the verdict denied, and the defendant appealed.
No error.
Clifford B. Wilson, of Bridgeport, and Leonard M. McMahon, of Danbury, for appellant.
Lorin W. Willis, Asst. State's Atty., of Bridgeport (William H Comley, State's Atty., of Bridgeport, on the brief), for the State.
Argued before MALTBIE, C.J., and HINMAN, HAINES, BANKS, and AVERY JJ.
This accused was charged under General Statutes, § 6277, the relevant portions of which provide: " Any man who shall carnally know any female under the age of forty-five years who is epilepic, imbecile, feeble-minded or a pauper shall be imprisoned,‘ etc. The information alleged that the " State's Attorney for Fairfield County accuses Frank W. Wyman * * * of the crime of carnal abuse of a feeble-minded person, and charges that between the first day of December, 1931, and the first day of January, 1932, * * * said Frank W. Wyman did carnally know one Margaret Casey, a female aged thirty-one years, who was at said time an imbecile. * * *‘
The state offered evidence to prove, and claimed to have proved, that in the month of December, 1931, Margaret Casey was about thirty-one years of age and lived in Newtown in this state; that for nearly six years before that she had permitted the accused to have carnal knowledge of her body at regular intervals, the last occasion being December 9, 1931; that about January 10, 1932, she informed the accused that she was pregnant; that on September 10, 1932, she gave birth to a child; that on or about June 1, 1932, the accused was questioned in regard to his relations with Margaret Casey and at first denied that he knew or had ever spoken to her, but later admitted that he was responsible for her pregnancy and agreed to make arrangements for the expenses of childbirth. The accused offered no evidence, and now raises no question, as to the correctness of this finding.
The defendant assigns error in the refusal of the court to set aside the verdict, and has procured the certification of all the evidence for this record. The stated ground of the motion was that the state had failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt " that Margaret Casey was feeble-minded or imbecile.‘ No evidence on this point was offered by the defendant, but the state offered Dr. David Ellrich, a qualified and experienced expert in mental cases, who testified he had spent some time in examining the woman at his office, and had applied the Binet-Simon test, which was a recognized method for determining the intelligence of an individual, and as a result of that test, he found her to be " a feeble-minded individual of the imbecile class.‘ He said that " she was imbecilic, that she rated low,‘ and in explanation of his finding he added: in the class of imbeciles.‘
The defendant claims that by itself the results of the Binet-Simon test, which was defined by the witness as an intelligence test, are not sufficient to establish feeble-mindedness or imbecility in this case, citing a distinction between an intelligence status and a mental condition discussed by A.E. Doll in an article entitled " The Term Feeble-minded,‘ in the Journal of American Institute Criminal Law and Criminology, vol. 8, p. 216. The defendant is quite justified in emphasizing this distinction if his view of the purpose and intent of the statute is correct; that is to protect one who has insufficient mental capacity to know the right and wrong of her conduct in sexual matters; one without the mental capacity, as distinguished from moral resistance, to overcome the temptation; one whose mind does not rank reasonably well with the average person, or who, by reason of subnormal development, is not adequately protected by those laws which protect the public generally.
The protection of the individual is clearly the main purpose of some of the statutes cited to us from other jurisdictions, and the abvility of the particular individual to know the right and to resist the wrong would conceivably be a vital element of proof in a prosecution under such a statute. Our own legislation, however, has a broader purpose, viz., the protection of the public and the community against the danger of increasing the number of mental defectives in our population.
Statutory offenses in this state are divided into various classes having relation to their general purpose, such as offenses against the sovereignty of the state; against public property; against public justice; against public peace and safety; against chastity; against humanity and morality; and finally against public policy.
The statute in question is not found among those defining offenses against the person such as indecent assault (General Statutes § 6052); nor against chasity, such as abuse of a female under sixteen years of age (General Statutes, § 6240); but it is classed as an offense against public policy. The history of the statute shows the classification to be sound, its moving purpose being to check the increase of mental defectives and abnormal persons in the community which results by inheritance from defective parents. Thus, it is also an offense in the state for " epileptic, imbecile or feeble-minded‘ persons to marry, if the woman is under the age of forty-five years, assumed to be the limit of the childbearing period. General Statutes, § 6275. This legislation originated in this state as sections 1 and 3 of chapter 325, amended by chapter 350 of the Public Acts of 1895, in substantially the same language in which it now appears in the Revision of 1930, § § 6275 and 6277. In the Revision of 1902 it was appropriately included in chapter 89 as sections 1354 and 1356, entitled " Offenses Against Public Policy,‘ and was so classed in the Revision of 1918, chapter 334, § § 6428 and 6430. The description of the prohibited classes and the age limit of forty-five years is the same in both these statutes. Gould v. Gould, 78 Conn. 242, 243-245, 61 A. 604, 2 L.R.A. (N. S.) 531;...
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Tough v. Ives
...the foreman reported the disagreement the situation confronting the court practically required the giving of the charge. State v. Wyman, 118 Conn. 501, 506, 173 A. 155; State v. Bradley, 134 Conn. 102, 112, 55 A.2d 114.' It is apparent from the trial judge's memorandum of decision that his ......
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State v. O'NEIL, (SC 16177)
...188 Conn. 626, 641, 453 A.2d 418 (1982), cert. denied, 461 U.S. 928, 103 S. Ct. 2088, 77 L. Ed. 2d 299 (1983); State v. Wyman, 118 Conn. 501, 507, 173 A. 155 (1934); see also State v. Mosca, 90 Conn. 381, 385, 97 A. 340 (1916) (Chip Smith instruction "has been . . . repeatedly given by tria......
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...and Limitations of Marriage, 9 A.B.A.J. 429 (1923); Lau v. Lau, 81 N.H. 44, 122 A. 345, 346 (1923); State v. Wyman, 118 Conn. 501, 173 A. 155, 156 (1934). See generally Linn & Bowers, The Historical Fallacies Behind Legal Prohibitions of Marriages Involving Mentally Retarded Persons—The Ete......
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...Cush. 1, and sanctioned by the Supreme Court of Massachusetts.' With these views we are in entire accord. See, also, State v. Wyman, 118 Conn. 501, 173 A. 155, 93 A.L.R. 913. Our conclusion upon the whole case is that the contention that the verdict was not the unanimous verdict of the jury......