166 Pa. 405 | Pa. | 1895
Opinion by
Seven of the nine specifications of error filed in this case really raise but one question and that is whether in a prosecution for incestuous fornication it is competent for the commonwealth to introduce evidence of illicit relations between the parties prior to the commission of the specific offence laid in the indictment. In Wharton on Criminal Evidence, section 35, it is said by the learned author that “ in prosecutions for adultery or for illicit intercourse of any class, evidence is admissible of sexual acts between the parties prior to, or when indicating continuousness of illicit relations, even subsequent to the act.
There is no merit in the fifth specification of error. It is defective and misleading because it does not show all that was done under the ruling complained of. The prosecutrix was asked if she told her brother and sisters about the offence charged in the indictment at the time of it, or immediately after its commission, and she replied that she did not, but added that she told her sisters about it five or six months afterwards. The court refused to allow her to state what she said to them, because upon her own showing, it was not within the ruling which limited the evidence to what she said at the time or immediately after the offence was committed. No motion was made by defendant’s counsel to strike out her answer or so much of it as was not strictly responsive to the question, nor was any suggestion made by them that it was in any degree prejudicial to their client. In fact such suggestion could not have been made with any show of reason for it. We conclude therefore that there is nothing in the fifth specification which calls for a reversal of the judgment.
The objection to the ruling complained of in the ninth specification of error is that the evidence offered was part of the commonwealth’s case in chief. This being so, the admission of it in rebuttal is not assignable in error: Finlay v. Stewart, 56 Pa. 183, and Brown v. Finney, 67 Pa. 214.
Judgment affirmed.