Case ID: mass_82/html/0263-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Merrick, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Caroline F. Paull vs. Edmund Padelford.
    On the trial of a bastardy process, the respondent cannot ask the complainant on cross-examination whether she has had criminal intercourse with other persons more than ten months and twelve days before the birth of her child; nor introduce evidence that the complainant’s character for chastity was bad for two or three years before the child’s birth.
    Bastardy process. At the trial in the superior court in Bristol before Vose, J., the complainant testified to two acts of intercourse between herself and the respondent, one on the 29th of May 1859, and one in July following, and that these were the only ones which they ever had together; and it was admitted that her child was born on the 12th of February 1860.
    The respondent asked the complainant, on cross-examination, whether before the 29th of May 1859 she had had any criminal intercourse with other persons. But the judge ruled that the inquiry must be limited to the months of April and May 1859.
    The respondent offered evidence that the complainant’s character for chastity had been bad for two or three years, stating that it was offered, not to impeach her character for truth, but because it would tend to show that during the time covered by the testimony, including the time fixed by the complainant as the time when the child was begotten, she was having intercourse with other persons. But the judge excluded the evidence. The jury found the respondent guilty, and he alleged exceptions.
    
      C. I. Reed, for the respondent.
    
      B. Sanford, for the complainant.
   Merrick, J.

The evidence offered by the respondent was properly rejected. Phillips v. Hoyle, 4 Gray, 568. And no reason has been assigned which is sufficient to justify or authorize the inquiries which he proposed to make of the complainant relative to the question whether acts of intercourse between her and some person other than himself had not taken place more than ten months and twelve days previously to the birth of her child; or to show that his exceptions to the ruling of the court excluding those inquiries ought to be sustained.

Exceptions overruled.