Case Name: The State v. Read
Court: Iowa Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Iowa
Decision Date: 1877-04-03
Citations: 45 Iowa 469
Docket Number: 
Parties: The State v. Read.
Judges: 
Reporter: Iowa Reports
Volume: 45
Pages: 469–470

Head Matter:
The State v. Read.
1, Criminal Law: evidence: bastardy. In an action charging a party -with being the father of an illegitimate child, evidence that the complaining witness shared her bed with one who might have been the father of the child is admissible, as tending to affect the credibility of the testimony of the complaining witness.
Appeal from Dubuque District Court.
Tuesday, April 3.
One Elizabeth Dewees filed a complaint against the defendant, charging him with being the father by her of an illegitimate child. On the trial she testified that the defendant was the father of the child, and that she called on him for assistance and he gave her $25.
The defendant testified that he never had sexual connection with her. He admitted that he paid her $25, but he said he obtained it for her, at her request, from a friend of hers. The defendant then called as a witness one Mrs. Brown, who testified as follows: “Have known Mrs. Dewees two years; she lived in the same house with me, on Jackson street. Her son, seventeen years old, lived with her.” The defendant’s counsel then asked the witness the following question: “For six months next prior to Sept. 29, 1874, do you know whether or. not Mrs. Dewees and her son occupied the same bed?” The witness answered: “1 know they did the most of the winter last winter, and all winter a year ago last winter.” To this answer the State objected as incompetent and immaterial, and not responsive to the question, and asked to have the same excluded. The court sustained the objection, and the defendant excepted.
The defendant then asked the witness the following question: “When, if ever, prior to Sept., 1874, did you know of Mrs. Dewees and her son occupying the same bed, and if so, for what length of time?” To this question the State objected as incompetent and immaterial, and the court sustained the objection, and the defendant excepted.
The jury rendered a verdict of guilty, and the defendant appeals.
E. MeGeney, for appellant.
D. J. Lenehan and J. B. Powers, for appellee.

Opinion:
Adams, J.
If the complainant was accustomed, both before and after the child was conceived, to occupy the same bed with a person who might have been the father of the child, evidence of such fact, we think, was admissible, as tending to affect the credibility of the complainant's testimony.
In excluding such evidence we think that the District Court erred.
Reversed.