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86 Ala. 34

Hussey v. State

Supreme Court of Alabama

Decided December 15, 1888

Supreme Court of Alabama · decided 1888-12-15

Erom the Circuit Court of Pike. Tried before the Hon. John P. Hubbard. The defendant in this case was indicted for the seduction of,Rebecca LcLendon, an unmarried female. On the trial, the prosecutrix testified that the defendant seduced her, in the summer.of 1886, under promise o£ marriage, she being engaged at the time to marry him; that she gave birth to a child in July, 1887, of which he was the'father; and that she had never had sexual intercourse with any other man.

Relies on Kenyon v. . the People · Wilson v. State · Snider v. Burks

Cited in Bouvier (1914)’s definition of “Seduction”

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1888-12-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 28 later decisions — most recently January 1962 · most notably Bancroft v. Otis (1890), Braham v. State (1904)

28 state decisions

100188818901900191019201930194019501960decided

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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SOMERVILLE, J.

¶1The fourth and fifth charges requested by the defendant were mere arguments for the jury on the facts of the case, and announced no sound propositions of law based on the evidence, as all charges should do, other than those based on the sufficiency of the evidence. “Charges of this character,” as we have heretofore observed,

¶2*36“asserting that the jury ‘may look to’ this fact, or ‘may consider’ that fact, or ‘are authorized to infer’ certain formulated conclusions from the evidence, and especially from specific parts of it, have often been condemned by us as objectionable, and should never be given, although either the giving- or the refusal of such instructions may not be a reversible error. They are legitimate arguments for the jury, not announcements of legal principles proper to be in the form of instructions by the court.”Snider v. Burks, 84 Ala. 53, 59. There was no error in refusing either of these instructions.

¶3The statute provides that, in the prosecution for the seduction of an unmarried woman, like the present, “no conviction can be had, if on the trial it is proved that such woman was, at the time of the alleged offense, unchaste.” Code, 1886, §4015; Wilson v. State, 73 Ala. 527. This means actually unchaste, wanton, libidinous, or lewd in’ conduct — not having a bad reputation or character for chastity. The female must not only be unmarried, but chaste in fact, when seduced. Kenyon v. People, 26 N. Y. 203; s. c., 84 Amer. Dec. 177; Bishop on Stat. Crimes (2d Ed.), § 639.

¶4The seventh and ninth charges requested by defendant were, under this principle, properly refused. The word “character,” used in these charges, is ambiguous in meaning, and may be construed to refer to the reputation of the prosecutrix. It was; therefore, misleading, in as much as evidence of bad reputation for chastity was inadmissible to prove a want of actual virtue.

¶5There appears to be no error in the record, and the judgment must be affirmed.

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