Court Opinion

ID: 9808704
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:47:17.301779+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:17:24.388423
License: Public Domain

MekrimoN, C. J.
(dissenting): The statute (The Code, § 1041) defines and -forbids “ fornication and adultery ” in these words: “ If any man and woman, not being married to each other, shall lewdly and lasciviously associate, bed and cohabit together, they shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.” To constitute the sexual intercourse thus prohibited, the act or acts must have the quality of lewdness and lasciviousness, not simply on the part of one, but both of the parties. The offence complete is their joint act in all material respects and cannot be otherwise committed. The Court has so repeatedly decided. In State v. Mainor, 6 Ired., 340, it was held that as one of the parties charged with this offence was found guilty and the other not guilty, no judgment could be entered against the former. Chief Justice RuffiN, saying for the Court: “ The farthest the Courts have gone is to allow one of the parties to be tried by himself and convicted, and then judgment is given against that party, because, as to him, the guilt of the other party is found as well as his own. But *773when the one has been previously tried or acquitted, or where both are tried together and the verdict is for one, the other cannot be found guilty, for he cannot be guilty, since a joint act is indispensible to the crime of either, and the record affirms that there was no such joint act.” To the same effect is State v. Parham, 5 Jones, 416. In State v. Lyerly, 7 Jones, 158, it was decided that where two are indicted for fornication and adultery, and one of the parlies was taken and put on his trial, and there was a general verdict of guilty, there might be judgment against him. MaNLY, J., saying for the Court, that “it is true the offence cannot be committed except by more than one, but the general verdict of guilty finds the guilt of the woman as well as the guilt of the defendant, as against the latter. The extent to which the cases have gone is where one only is convicted, and others acquitted, there can be no judgment.” These cases have been oftentimes recognized in material respects, and no one of them has ever been overruled. In the recent case of State v. Rinehart, 106 N. C., 787, State v. Mainer and State v. Parham, supra, are expressly cited for the purpose I here cite them, and approved. While there are decisions in other States not in harmony with them, it seems to me that this Court ought to be governed by and adhere to its own decisions, made repeatedly and by Judges of very great ability, learning and experience. They long ago settled the interpretation of the statute creating and defining the offence under consideration, and the legislature, it must be presumed, had knowledge of such decisions and has not seen fit to change or modify the statute in any material respect. In my judgment it is too late to overrule what has been so decided, and start upon a new line of interpretation that will end, we know not where. Possible cases of enormity cannot warrant a departure from an interpretation of the statute so well settled.
It seems to me that the decision in this case necessarily, in effect, overrules the cases cited supra. The jury rendered *774a special verdict. The facts found as to the male defendant, the appellant, who alone was put upon his trial, tend strongly to show that he was guilty of the much graver crime of bigamy. But as to the female defendant, who was not put upon her trial, the facts found by the verdict show that she was not guilty. She was innocent — she thought that the male defendant was her lawful husband, and as soon as she became sensible of his perfidy and crime she ceased to live with him. She did not, in a legal sense — thal of the statute— “ lewdly and lasciviously associate, bed and cohabit together” with him. As she was not guilty of the offence charged in any view of it, how, in view of the statute and the cases cited above, can the appellant be guilty .of the particular offence charged? I am unable to see.
Incest was not an indictable offence in this State until it was made so by recent statute (The Code, §§1060, 1061, Acts 1879, ch. 16, §12), and it is materially different from that under consideration. State v. Keesler, 78 N. C.,469. It makes the mere act of carnal intercourse between the male and female classes of persons specified indictable, and no doubt one of the parties might be convicted and the other acquitted. But the statute in respect to fornication and adultery does not, as we have seen, make the simple act of sexual intercourse indictable. To create this offence, the male and female not being married to each other, must “Jewdly and lasciviously associate, bed and cohabit together.” There must exist the common purpose and knowledge of it to be lewd and lascivious in the association, bedding and cohabiting forbidden, else the offence is not complete. If the facts are as the jury found them to be, it would seem that the appellant should have been indicted for bigamy, and not for the offence charged in the indictment. The argument that a bad man may escape, cannot have force here.
Per curiam. No error.