Court Opinion

ID: 9417410
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 20:14:29.915691+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:20:29.620282
License: Public Domain

Miller, J.,
with whom concurred Mr. Justice Field. — I dissent from the judgment of the court in this case.
*80I think that the act of Congress, when prohibiting cohabitation with more than one woman, meant unlawful habitual sexual intercourse.
It is, in my opinion, a strained construction of a highly penal statute to hold that a man can be guilty, under that statute, without the accompaniment of actual sexual connection.
I know of no instance in which the word cohabitation has been used to describe a criminal offence where it did not imply sexual intercourse.'
Mr. Justice Field concurs with me.