Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

39 Vt. 417

State v. Reed

Supreme Court of Vermont

Decided February 15, 1867

Supreme Court of Vermont · decided 1867-02-15

INDICTMENT in two counts, for rape and assault with intent to commit rape. Plea, not guilty, and trial by jury at the December Term, 1866, Baeeett, J. presiding. The State’s Attorney called as a witness Amaretta Marcott, named in the indictment, whose testimony tended to prove the allegations in the indictment, and that the respondent had had sexual connection with her against her will.

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“The jury would be less ready to conclude that a woman, who had once improperly yielded, afterwards properly resisted, than they would if she had been a woman of unquestioned virtue.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including State v. Patnaude

Relies on State v. Johnson

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1867-02-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently November 1981

8 state decisions

201867187018801890190019101920193019401950196019701980decided

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 →

¶1The opinion of the court was delivered by

Steele, J.

¶2The exact question raised by the exceptions was thoroughly discussed and decided in favor of the respondent in the case State v. Johnson, 28 Vt. 512. Before that decision was made, the question was, at least, debatable both upon reason and authority, and it was, perhaps, more important that the point should be settled, *419than how it was settled. The court were not unanimous in that decision, hut we should require stroug reasons for overruling the case and denying a respondent the privilege which the majority of the court then solemnly held was his right. In this view, we have not thought it necessary, even if fitting, to enter into an extended consideration of the authorities upon the subject. We do not wish, however, to be considered as casting a doubt upon the original correctness in principle of that decision. Testimony of the general reputation for chastity of the person who claims to have been the victim of the crime of rape, and testimony of her previous illicit intercourse with the prisoner, are, upon all the authorities, confessedly admissible as tending to show that the act of which she complains may not have been against her will. The testimony here offered has practically the same tendency though inferior in force and conclusiveness. The difference is rather in the degree than in the quality of the evidence. If the woman, alleged to have been forced, had admitted on her cross-examination that she had sexual intercourse beside the railroad track with the person named, the admission would justly have had considerable weight in favor of the prisoner, particularly connected, as it was, with testimony of her general bad reputation for chastity. The jury would be less ready to conclude that a woman, who had once improperly yielded, afterwards properly resisted, than they would if she had been a woman of unquestioned virtue. The defence, in cases of this nature, usually rests mainly upon circumstances, and the cross-examination of the party who complains that she has been forced. Such cross-examination should, therefore, be allowed to be as unrestrained and searching, as is consistent with the rules of law. We are not disposed, in order to abridge this privilege, to overrule a recent decision of the supreme court in this state.

¶3, New trial granted.

/39/vt/417 · .json · Public domain