Terry v. State
Terry v. State
Opinion of the Court
The appellant was indicted, convicted, and sentenced in the Haralson county drouit court to the penitentiary for three years for seduction. The indictment was drawn under section 1081 of the Code of 1906, and it charges, leaving out the formal pails, that appellant “did then and there unlawfully and feloniously seduce and have illicit intercourse with one Hilda Eyan, a female child under the age of eighteen, years old and of previous chaste character.” There are but two of the many assignments of error that we will consider.
First. Appellant assigns as fatal error that the indictment
It is further contended that the prosecutrix is not corroborated in her statement. Our statutes provide that she must not only be of previous chaste character, but that the testimony of the-female seduced alone shall not be sufficient to convict. This is-a wise -and wholesome provision of the law. It guards against, or rather minimizes, the chances of an innocent party being-accused and convicted. Has the prosecutrix met these requirements of the law ? Without going into the details of the testimony on this point, we think she is abundantly corroborated by many facts and circumstances testified to in this case by witnesses other than the prosecutrix. The jury was fully warranted in finding defendant guilty.
Pee Curiam. The above opinion is adopted by the court-
Affirmed.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Chester Terry v. State of Mississippi
- Status
- Published
- Syllabus
- 1. 'Criminal Law and Procedure. Seduction. Code 1906, § 1081. Indictment. Previous chaste character. Time. An indictment, under Code 1906, § 1081, making it a felony to se- ■ duce a female child under eighteen years of age of previous Chaste character, is not demurrable for failure to qualify the charge that the child was of previous chaste character by the use of the words “then and there,’’ since the charge was referable only to’the time immediately preceding the offense. 2. Same. Same. Same. Evidence. Corroboration of prosecutrix. In a prosecution for seduction of a female child under eighteen years of age of previous chaste character, the testimony of the prosecutrix must, by the terms of the statute, be corroborated in order to sustain a conviction; but in this case it was corroborated.