Butt v. State
Butt v. State
Opinion of the Court
By the Court
delivering the opinion.
In the 10th division of the Penal Code, which embraces offenses against the public morality, health, police and decency, section 5th enacts, “That any man or woman who shall live together in a state of adultery or fornication, or of adultery and fornication, or who shall otherwise commit adultery or fornication, or adultery and fornication, shall be severally indicted, and on conviction, said offenders shall be severally fined or imprisoned in the common jail of the county, or both, at the discretion of the Court:” Cobb’s Digest, 815.
If both parties are married, both are guilty of adultery; if both are single, both are guilty of fornication. If one is married and the other single, the one married is guilty of adultery and the one single of fornication.
The defendant was charged severally, in the indictment, with the offense of adultery and fornication. But the specification is that being a married man he committed said offense with one Angela Cato, a single woman, and so the jury found him guilty of adultery. This is the practice long established under the Code, and we believe the Gaming Act has received asimilar construction. The nature of the offense charged could not but be sufficiently understood by the jury, if the accusation be not in the very language of the Code. The other objection is that the indictment does not charge that the woman was a free white woman, or that she was a woman of color, free or slave, and the objection would seem to be well taken under the authority of the decision in 22 Georgia Reports, 101. There the defendant was indicted for playing and betting at cards, and this Court held that it ought to show whether the person with whom the playing and betting were done was a white person or a negro. For it was insisted that that offense, like this, could be committed with a person of either color, and moreover, it is argued that the decision in 22 Georgia Reports overrules the case of John, a slave, vs. The State, 16 Georgia Reports, 200, wherein this Court held, that any one, whether bond or free, who is indicted
Let the judgment be affirmed.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- William B. Butt, in error v. The State of Georgia, in error
- Status
- Published