Yother v. State

• Decision Date: 10 May 1904
• Parties: YOTHER v. STATE.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

47 S.E. 555

120 Ga. 204

YOTHER v. STATE.

Supreme Court of Georgia

May 10, 1904

Syllabus by the Court.

1. A man accused of incestuous adultery cannot be convicted upon the uncorroborated testimony of the woman with whom he is alleged to have committed the offense.

Error from Superior Court, Murray County; A. W. Fite, Judge.

Jeff Yother was convicted of crime, and brings error. Reversed.

H. A. Longston, Jesse S. Glenn, and Geo. G. Glenn, for plaintiff in error.

Sam P. Maddox, Sol. Gen., for the State.

SIMMONS, C.J.

The accused was charged with having committed acts of incestuous adultery with his own daughter. She swore positively to his guilt. There was absolutely nothing to corroborate her testimony. "A woman who knowingly and willfully consents to an act of sexual intercourse which is incestuous is an accomplice of the man, and her uncorroborated testimony is not sufficient to sustain a verdict convicting him of incestuous adultery." Solomon v. State, 113 Ga. 192, 38 S.E. 332. It was argued that in this case the woman did not knowingly and willfully consent, and was therefore not an accomplice. Under the rulings in Raiford v. State, 68 Ga. 672, and Taylor v. State, 110 Ga. 151, 35 S.E. 161 (6), we think her evidence showed that the offense was incestuous adultery, though her consent may have been reluctantly given, and that she was an accomplice, whose testimony was insufficient to convict without corroboration. If this is not true, then the accused was guilty of rape, and the verdict finding him guilty of incestuous adultery was illegal. Thus, in either view of the case, the verdict should have been set aside, and a new trial ordered.

Judgment reversed. All the Justices concurring.