Court Opinion

ID: 9808076
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:27:10.210548+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:05:28.997146
License: Public Domain

Douglas, J., dissenting.
I can not concur in the opinion of the Court, which seems to be based entirely upon the decision in State v. McDowell, 101 N. C., 734. That case does not seem to me to be in conflict with that at bar. In McDowell’s case the wife did not testify to any act on the part of the husband, either before or after marriage, except that *730be bad left ber two years before and sbe bad not beard from bim since be left. Neither tbe purpose nor tbe effect of ber evidence was to cast any discredit upon ber busband, but simply to show tbe impossibility of bis being tbe father of tbe child. Tbe wife, who was tbe prosecuting witness in bastardy proceedings against McDowell, testified that after ber busband bad permanently left ber, sbe bad criminal connection with tbe defendant, resulting in tbe birth of a bastard child, which sbe asked that be be made to support. No act of tbe busband was in question. Tbe wife was simply a voluntary witness to ber own disgrace, which bad already been shown by her having a child born so long after tbe desertion of ber busband as to preclude any possibility of bis being tbe father.
In tbe case at bar tbe busband is made to testify to tbe infamy of bis wedded wife, with whom be is now living, and who, as far as appears from tbe evidence, has never broken ber marriage vow to bim.
Tbe cases are, to my mind, so essentially different that I feel that my concurrence in tbe opinion of tbe Court is not in derogation of its former decisions. Regarding it as an open question, and thinking that tbe letter of tbe statute admits, if it does not demand, tbe construction placed upon it by tbe Court, I deem it my duty to join in an interpretation most thoroughly consistent with tbe spirit of tbe law and tbe dominating policy of tbe age. In my opinion, neither busband nor wife can be dragged from tbe marriage bed to testify tO' any act of tbe other, no matter when it happened, that will lead to moral degradation and public infamy.