6 Abb. Pr. 139 | New York Court of Common Pleas | 1858
The defendant was arrested under the provisions of the act entitled “ An act to punish seduction as a crime,” passed March 22,1848, on the complaint of Janet Hamilton, charged with seduction under promise of marriage.
The case was originally heard before Justice Connolly, and the defendant ordered to find bail in the sum of $2000. Writs of habeas corpus and certiorari were afterwards allowed by me. In order that a more careful examination of the witnesses for the People should be had, and at the same time give a proper explanation to several matters about which the evidence was silent, I directed that the parties, with their proofs, should appear before me. On such subsequent hearing, the witnesses for the people having appeared, the following facts were established :—That the complainant was twenty and the defendant was seventeen years of age; that they first met in October, 1857, at about three o’clock in the evening, in the street, in Toronto, Canada; that the acquaintance thus formed soon ripened into intimacy, and continued up to the 28th day of "November of the same year, when the parties left Canada, and came to the
Although I might, in some cases, while acting as a committing magistrate, feel justified in holding a defendant without any other proof on this point than that of the female alleged to have been seduced, yet I could not do so under all the suspicious circumstances surrounding this case. If the acquaintance had been formed in the proper and usual way, by means of an introduction from a mutual acquaintance; if the acquaintance thus improperly formed had been carried on with the consent of her parents; if the defendant had visited the complainant in the character of suitor; or if the statement of the complainant 'was so truthful and straightforward as to justify me in saying there was probable cause to hold the defendant, I would willingly do so ; but here, every thing goes to show that it will be impossible to obtain a conviction, even if a bill is found. As to the second point raised by the defendant’s counsel, that the complainant must be corroborated on each of the three requisites of the statute, I shall hold, as it was held in the McOerren case, before referred to, that* the words of the statute, “ provided that no conviction shall be had under the provisions of the act on the testimony of the female seduced, unsupported by other testimony,” do not mean, or render it necessary, that such female should be corroborated on every material statement, or on both the seduction and the promise to marry. " If it did, the intention and operation of the law would be defeated, as the seduction can, in scarcely any case, be proved except by the testimony of the person injured; while the promise can be proved by either positive or inferential evidence, either by the defendant’s own acknowledgments, or by the manner of his treatment, conduct, or expressions used.
Entertaining these views, I hereby order the discharge of the defendant, and direct that the" recognizance given in this case be cancelled.