Case Name: Scott Sharp v. The State
Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
Jurisdiction: Texas
Decision Date: 1910-11-30
Citations: 61 Tex. Crim. 247
Docket Number: No. 846
Parties: Scott Sharp v. The State.
Judges: 
Reporter: Texas Criminal Reports
Volume: 61
Pages: 247–250

Head Matter:
Scott Sharp v. The State.
No. 846.
Decided November 30, 1910.
Rehearing Denied February 22, 1911.
1. —Seduction—Chastity of Prosecutrix—Charge of Court.
Where upon trial of seduction, there was evidence that the prosecutrix had sexual intercourse with other parties than the defendant anterior to the alleged intercourse with the defendant, the court should have submitted to the jury an instruction that if prosecutrix was an unchaste woman at the time of her alleged intercourse with the defendant, to acquit him.
2. —Same—lost Record—Transcript—Practice on Appeal—Continuance.
Where, upon appeal from a conviction of seduction, the cause was reversed for the court’s failure to charge on the question of the unchastity of the prosecutrix, and the State in its motion for rehearing showed that the trial judge in fact gave such a charge but that the same was lost and not copied in the transcript, the ease would be affirmed were it not for the overruling of the application of continuance for the absent testimony of a witness by whom defendant could show carnal intercourse by said witness with the prosecutrix.
3. —Same—Indictment.
Where upon trial of seduction, the indictment was sufficient there was no error in overruling the motion to quash.
4. —Same—Evidence—Reputation of Witnesses.
Upon trial of seduction, there was no error in permitting the reputation of the witness at the time of the trial to be proven.
Appeal from the District Court of Delta. Tried below before the Hon. B. L. Porter.
Appeal from a conviction of seduction; penalty, five years imprisonment in the penitentiary.
The opinion states the case.
Patterson & Patterson and Lennox & Lennox and Moore & Park, for appellant.
—Upon question of admitting in evidence the reputation of witness at time of trial: Johnson v. Brown, 51 Texas, 65.
On the question of the court’s failure to charge as to prosecutrix’s want of chastity: Boren v. State, 23 Texas Crim. App., 28; Curtis v. State, 22 Texas Crim. App., 227; Bell v. State, 21 Texas Crim. App., 270.
Upon the questiofi of restoring lost record in transcript: Lewis v. State, 34 Texas Crim. Rep., 126; Quarles v. State, 37 Texas Crim. Rep., 362; Nichols v. State, 55 Texas Crim. Rep., 211, 115 S. W. Rep., 1196.
C. E. Lane, Assistant Attorney-General, for the State.

Opinion:
McCORD, Judge.
—Appellant was convicted of seduction, and awarded a term of five years confinement in the penitentiary.
Numerous questions are presented in the record, but as they are not likely to occur upon another trial, it is unnecessary to mention them.
In the trial of the case two witnesses testified, to wit: Sam Sinclair and Bich Akard, that each had intercourse with prosecutrix on several occasions, and at a time anterior to the intercourse between the defendant and prosecutrix. The court in his charge to the jury omitted to instruct them upon this issue, but simply directed the jury that if they believed that the prosecutrix was under twenty-five years of age and defendant had intercourse with her and the same was under a promise of marriage, and she yielded her virtue in consideration of that promise, he would be guilty of the offense. The court instructed the jury that seduction means to lead an unmarried female under the age of twenty-five years away from the path of virtue, to entice or persuade her by means of a promise of marriage to surrender her chastity, and nowhere in the charge did he instruct the jury that if at the time she had intercourse with the defendant under a promise of marriage she was an unchaste woman and had surrendered her person to other men, the defendant could not be guilty. Appellant requested the court to charge the jury that though they might believe that prosecutrix yielded to the defendant under a promise of marriage and that he had intercourse with her, yet if they believe from the evidence that before such promise of marriage, if any, the prosecutrix had had carnal intercourse with some other person or persons, then it would be their duty to acquit. This charge was refused. The facts of the case call for such a charge, and it was error for the court to fail to thus instruct the jury, for if she was not a chaste woman and had before that time had intercourse with other men, she would not be the subject of seduction as that term is known to the law. See Vantrees v. State, 59 Texas Crim. Rep., 281, 128 S. W. Rep., 383.
For.the error indicated the judgment is reversed and the cause is remanded.
Reversed and remanded.