People v. Kehoe

Citations

• 123 Cal. 224
• 55 P. 911
• 1898 Cal. LEXIS 1018

Syllabus

<p>Criminal Law—Seduction under Promise of Marriage—Minority of Parties.—In a prosecution under section 268 of the Penal Code, for the crime of seducing an unmarried female under promise of future marriage, the fact that the defendant, at the time of the promise, was under the age of lawful consent to marriage, thus rendering his promise of.marriage not legal and binding, does not withdraw the offense from the purview of that section. The offense may be committed by an infant upon an infant, “if both have reached the age of puberty.”</p> <p>Id.—Legality of Promise not Requisite—Design of Law—Confidence in Moral Obligation of Promise.—The design of the law is to protect female chastity; and excepting where the promise of marriage is known by the promisee to be base and meretricious, the promise need not be such a legal promise as would support an action for its breach. Although the female seduced may have known that the seducer was unable at that time to.contract a lawful marriage, she had a right to put confidence in his intention to fulfill the moral obligation of the promise when able to do so.</p> <p>Id.—Evidence—Previous Chaste Character of Prosecutrix—Subsequent Unchaste Conduct.—The inquiry in determining the chaste character of the defendant is confined to her previous chaste character, and evidence of her subsequent sexual intercourse with other men is properly excluded.</p> <p>Id.—Meaning of Chastity — Prior Familiarities.—Chastity, in the case of an unmarried female, means simply that she is virgo intacta; and whatever prior familiarities, liberties, or even indecencies, may have been permitted by her, so long as she did not surrender her person until seduced to do so by the defendant under promise of marriage, she cannot be said to have been unchaste, or not to have been “an unmarried female of previous chaste character,” within the meaning of the statute.</p> <p>Id.—Instructions—Assumption of Facts.—Instructions are not chargeable with an improper assump