Case ID: me_13/html/0110-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      By the Court.\n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Moulton, Libellant, v. Moulton.
    In a libel for divorce, the particeps criminis, if unmarried, is a competent witness.
    In a libel for divorce, by the wife against the husband for the cause of adultery with an unmarried woman, the particeps crim-inis was offered, as a witness in behalf of the libellant.
    
      S. Emery, for the respondent,
    objected to her competency; and after remarking, that he could not be expected to produce English authorities in support of the objection, because there adultery was not punished as crime ; and after urging that it was against public policy, and an encouragement to crime to permit a divorce to be decreed on such testimony; cited 3 Dane, 446, 447.
    
      D. Goodenotv, for the libellant,
    said, that the offence was not adultery in an unmarried woman, and that the practice had been to admit one thus circumstanced to testify, and mentioned two or three cases of this description not reported ; and cited Brown v. Brown, 5 Blass. B. 320, as decisive against the objection.
   By the Court.

We know of no rule of law, which will exclude the witness. The objection goes to her credit, and not to her competency.