Cheaney v. State

36 Ark. 74
CourtSupreme Court of Arkansas
DecidedNovember 15, 1880
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 36 Ark. 74 (Cheaney v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Arkansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Cheaney v. State, 36 Ark. 74 (Ark. 1880).

Opinions

English, C. J.

At the November term, 1879, of the circuit court of Franklin county, P. 0. Cheaney was indicted for seduction under a false promise of marriage.

The indictment charged that “said P. 0. Cheaney, on the twenty-ninth day of June, 1879, in the county of Franklin, etc., being a single and unmarritd man, unlawfully and feloniously did obtain carnal knowledge of one Mary Head, a single and unmarried female, by virtue of a false express promise of marriage to her previously made by the said P. 0. Cheaney ; against the peace,” etc.

Defendant demurred to the indictment on the grounds that it did not substantially conform to the requirements of the statute, apd did not state facts which constituted a public offense.

The court overruled the demurrer; aud on the application of defendant, the venue was changed to the circuit court of Pope county, -where the case was tried at the March term, 1880, on plea of not guilty, and the jury found defendant guilty, and assessed his punishment at a fine of $1,000, and imprisonment in the penitentiary for one year.

The court rendered judgment that defendant be imprisoned in the penitentiary for one year, and that the state recover of him the fine of $1,000 assessed by the jury, and the costs, and that if the fine and costs were not paid by the expiration of his term of imprisonment, he be further imprisoned in the penitentiary until they were paid, but that his confinement for fine and costs should not exceed one day for each two dollars thereof, etc.

After defendant wTas sentenced, the court permitted him to file a motion to set aside the judgment and grant him a new trial, which the court overruled, and he took a bill of exceptions, and afterwards brought error.

I. The indictment was drafted under the following statute:

“Any person who shall be convicted of obtaining carnal knowledge of any female by virtue of any feigned or pretended marriage, or of any false or feigned express promise of marriage, shall, on conviction, be imprisoned not exceeding two years in the penitentiary, and fined in any sum not exceeding five thousand dollars; but no person shall be convicted of said crime upoii the testimony of the female, unless the same be corroborated by other evidence.” Act of April 18, 1869; Gantt’s Digest, sec. 1319.

The indictment alleges in form substantially good, all the material facts requisite to constitute the crime of seduction by false express promise of marriage under the statute, and the demurrer to it was properly overruled.

II. The material allegation's of the indictment were sufficiently proved by the testimony of the injured female, taken in connection with admissions made by defendant to several witnesses. The evidence, looking at the whole of it, does not make a case of rape as suggested by counsel for plaintiff in-error, but sustains the charge of seduction by false promise of marriage.

i. Ixstkuctions: should be

The question of foi’ce was submitted to the jury by the sixth instruction moved for defendant, and given, by the court, which was as follows :

“ If the jury believe that the defendant did obtain carnal knowledge of the said Mary Head, but that the same was done forcibly against the will, and contrary, to the desire and consent of said Mary Head, then,they must acquit.”

III. The bill of exceptions show's that eleven instrueRods were moved for defendant; that the court gave the and sixth, and refused the others; then follows a statement that “the court in lieu of the instructions asked for by defendant, gave the following” — but none are set out. These instructions should have been brought upon the record by the bill of exceptions, so that we could see whether the court erred in giving them in lieu of such of defendant’s as w'ere refused.

IY. On the motion of the prosecuting attorney, the court gave six instructions, the defendant objecting to the second only¡

In the first, the court stated to the jury the offense charged, and the second follows:

“To sustain this charge, it must appear from the evidence: first, that the defendant did obtain carnal knowledge of Mary Plead; second, that he did so by virtue of an express promise of marriage which was false, and was made by the defendant alone for the purpose of obtaining such carnal knowledge; third, that such false promise was made in such manner and under such circumstances as to induce said Mary Head to believe that it was not false, but was sincere and true, and that, so believing, she submitted to his embraces, when otherwise she would not have permitted such intimacy; fourth, these facts, if proven to the satisfaction of the jury, satisfying their minds beyond a reasonable doubt, together with the further facts that the oflense was committed in Franklin county, etc., and at some time within three years next before the finding of the indictment, are sufficient upon which to convict the defendant.”

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No objection to this instruction has been made by counsel here, and we see nothing in it that could be the subject of a well-founded objection on the part of the accused;

V. It was objected in the court below that the court erred in so much of the judgment as sentenced defendant to further imprisonment in the penitentiary, after the expiration of the term of one year fixed by the verdict, for the payment of the fine and costs, at one day for each two dollars thereof, should the same not be paid by the time the fixed period of imprisonment expired.

Under the Revised Statutes, before the penitentiary was established, many felonies, as well as misdemeanors, were made punishable by fines, etc. See Revised Statutes, Criminal Jurisprudence.

If, on conviction, afine and costs were not paid, the defendant was committed to jail until they were paid, but might be released under the insolvent act; or the court, or judge, might order him imprisoned for a limited time, in lieu of the fine, etc. Ib., Criminal Practice, secs. 109, 201.

By the act of the seventeenth of December, 1838, (Acts of 1838, p. 121,) modifying the penal code to correspond with the establishment of a penitentiary, no felony was made punishable by fine, but all felonies were made punishable by imprisonment in the penitentiary or by death ; in other words, the act provided for no fine where imprisonment in the penitentiary was made the punishment for an offense.

So, after the passage of this act, it was in misdemeanors only that persons were subject to imprisonment in jail for fines and costs, under the provisions of the Revised Statutes, above cited.

After the passage of the penitentiary act of the seventeenth of December, 1838, the legislature passed as manyas seven acts (including the one under which plaintiff in error was indicted) providing for the punishment of particular offenses named in them, by both fines and imprisonment in the penitentiary. (See Gantts Digest, pages 336, 342, 348, 351, 356, 367 and 372.) But in none of these acts, except the slander act (Gantts Digest, p. 378), is there any provision that the person convicted shall be confined in the penitentiary until the fine be paid.

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36 Ark. 74, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/cheaney-v-state-ark-1880.