157 Iowa 412 | Iowa | 1912
— Prosecutrix testified that the accused had sexual intercourse with her in the evening of December 1G, 1910. She was then sixteen years old, and he eighteen or nineteen. She testified that he walked home with her frequently, had accompanied her to dances, and had been in her company on other occasions; that some time previous to the date named he had told her that he loved her
Our conclusion is that, notwithstanding the testimony of prosecutrix that the conditional promise of marriage was what finally induced her to yield to sexual indulgence, the court did not err in submitting to the jury whether seduction was accomplished by protestations of love, deception, or other artifices.
But it ought not to be said that a young girl of sixteen years, in yielding to one professing to love her, and in the circumstances described by prosecutrix, on the strength of such a promise, is necessarily of previous unchastity, or submitted as the result of passion, rather than the false promise of the accused. State v. Hughes, 106 Iowa, 125; State v. Knutson, 91 Iowa, 549; State v. O’Hare, 36 Wash. 516 (79 Pac. 39, 68 L. R. A. 107, 104 Am. St. Rep. 970). We adhere to the rule announced in the Hughes case.
The definition of previous chastity was correct, and the evidence such as to preclude interference with the verdict by this court. — Affirmed.