Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

2 Ind. 439

Williams v. State

Indiana Supreme Court

Decided November 15, 1850

Indiana Supreme Court · decided 1850-11-15

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1850-11-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 3 later decisions — most recently April 1968

3 state decisions

10185018601870188018901900191019201930194019501960decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

¶1ELIJAH. WILLIAMS was convicted of incest, in the Adams Circuit Court, upon the following charge in an indictment.

W. March, for the plaintiff.D. Wallace, for the defendant.

¶2Elijah Williams, late of said county, on the first day of December, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and. forty-nine, at the county of Adams aforesaid, unlawfully did have sexual intercourse with his daughter, Elizabeth Williams, the said Elizabeth then and there knowing that she, the said Elizabeth, was his, the said Elijah’s, daughter,” &c.

¶3The indictment is claimed to be predicated upon section 42 of the R. S., which enacts that “if any father shall have sexual intercourse with his daughter, knowing her to be such,” he “ shall be deemed guilty of incest,” &c.

¶4This indictment is bad in not alleging that Williams had the intercourse with his daughter, “ knowing her to be such,” unless the word unlawfully is equivalent to such allegation. We think it is not. Williams might have had the intercourse by way of rape, adultery, or fornication, either of which might have been unlawful, and he still been ignorant that such intercourse was with his daughter. See Judah’s case, 38 chap, of Gen., 15 to 26 ver. inclusive.

¶5This defect, being available on demurrer or motion to quash, is not cured by verdict. 1 Chit. Cr. L. 662.

¶6The judgment is reversed. Cause remanded, &c.

/2/ind/439 · .json · Public domain