Wood v. Commonwealth

• Decision Date: 17 November 1932
• Citation: 166 S.E. 477
• Parties: WOOD. v. COMMONWEALTH.
• Court: Virginia Supreme Court

166 S.E. 477

WOOD.

v.COMMONWEALTH.

Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia.

Nov. 17, 1932.

Error to Circuit Court, Rockingham County.

Leonard H. Wood was convicted of unlawfully and feloniously seducing, under promise of marriage, an unmarried female of previous chaste character, and he brings error.

Reversed and remanded.

Argued before CAMPBELL, C. J., and HOLT, EPES, HUDGINS, GREGORY, and BROWNING, JJ.

Charles A. Hammer, of Harrisonburg, for plaintiff in error.

John R. Saunders, Atty. Gen., for the Commonwealth.

BROWNING, J.

Leonard H. Wood, the petitioner, at the April term, 1931, of the circuit court of Rockingham county, Va., was adjudged guilty of a felony and sentenced to serve 2¹/₂ years in the penitentiary. The crime for which he was indicted was that of unlawfully and feloniously seducing, under promise of marriage, Dorothy Short, an unmarried female of previous chaste character.

The verdict of the jury and the judgment of the court was in accordance with the above statement. The petitioner alleges error in the action of the trial court in overruling his motion to set aside the verdict as contrary to the law and the evidence and in its refusal to allow him to show that the prosecutrix was a colored person, whose marriage with him was forbidden by statute, and therefore the promise of marriage, if such there was, being prohibited by law, the contract was rendered illegal and void and in contravention of the policy of this state.

It is only necessary to dwell upon the latter alleged error.

Section 67 of the Code of 1930 is, in part, as follows: "Every person in whom there is ascertainable any negro blood shall be deemed and taken to be a colored person. * * *

Section 5099a, par. 5, provides: "It shall hereafter be unlawful for any white person in this state to marry any save a white person. * * *"

Section 4546: "If any white person intermarry with a colored person, or any colored person intermarry with a white person, he shall be confined in the penitentiary not less than two nor more than five years."

Thus, that the preservation of racial integrity is the unquestioned policy of this state, and that it is sound and wholesome, cannot be gainsaid.

The prosecutrix, Dorothy Short, was asked by counsel for the accused who her grandfather was on her mother's side. The court was told that the purpose of this question was to elicit from the witness the information that the ancestor whose identity was sought was one William Campbell, a negro, and that the witness, if permitted to answer, would have so testified. The court sustained the objection of the attorney for the commonwealth to the question, holding it inadmissible.

It is manifest that the accused was not aware, at the time of the commission of the alleged offense, of the ancestry of the prosecutrix; therefore, if he were guilty of the charge, his moral turpitude would not be less because there was a legal inhibition of the marriage between them.

We have found no...