In re Dempsey

Decided July 15, 1900

New York Supreme Court · decided 1900-07-15

<p>Seduction—Complaint—Corroboratory Evidence.</p> <p>Pen. Code, § 286, which provides that there can be no conviction for seduction under promise of marriage on the unsupported testimony of the female seduced, does not require the formal complaint which initiates the prosecution to be supported by evidence other than that of the complaining witness, since the statute refers only to a rule of evidence in the trial and conviction of such offenders.</p>

Relies on Boyce v. . People of the State of New York

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Writ dismissed · Decided 1900-07-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 5 later decisions — most recently January 1973

1 federal appellate · 2 state decisions

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.

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McADAM, J.

¶1The prisoner was arrested on the charge of seducing the complainant under promise of marriage. Pen. Code, § 284. The complaint charges every fact necessary to make the crime complete. The law requiring the complainant to be corroborated (Id. § 286) is a mere rule of evidence relating to the trial and conviction of such offenders, and in no manner pertains to the formal complaint which initiates the prosecution. Indeed, the corroboration may be by circumstantial evidence. Boyce v. People, 55 N. Y. 644; State v. Brinkhaus (Minn.) 25 N. W. 642; State v. Hill (Mo. Sup.) 4 S. W. 121.

¶2Writ dismissed, and prisoner remanded.