Watkins v. State

Alabama Court of Appeals

Watkins v. State

122 So. 609, 23 Ala. App. 193, 1928 Ala. App. LEXIS 310

CourtAlabama Court of Appeals

DecidedDecember 11, 1928

Docket4 Div. 415.

StatusPublished

This text of 122 So. 609 (Watkins v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Alabama Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook

Watkins v. State, 122 So. 609, 23 Ala. App. 193, 1928 Ala. App. LEXIS 310 (Ala. Ct. App. 1928).

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Opinions

Seduction. At the close of the defendant's testimony, the bill of exceptions recites: "The State in rebuttal offered the profert of the baby." (The italics are ours.) Proper objection was made and exception reserved. The conviction is sought to be sustained here on appeal on the principal that "profert of the child" is permissible in prosecutions for seduction, where intercourse between defendant and prosecutrix is denied, in order to show one very essential element of the offense charged — the act of intercourse. Even so, what baby?

Manifestly the baby must be identified as the one born of prosecutrix, and within the period of gestation from the time of the act for which defendant is being prosecuted. Here the baby, profert of which was allowed, was in no way described in the evidence. Whether it was the child of prosecutrix, and whether it was born before or after the time of the alleged seduction, nowhere is shown. In this state of the case, clearly it was error to overrule appellant's objection to its profert.

Reversed and remanded.

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Seduction. At the close of the defendant's testimony, the bill of exceptions recites: "The State in rebuttal offered the profert of the baby." (The italics are ours.) Proper objection was made and exception reserved. The conviction is sought to be sustained here on appeal on the principal that "profert of the child" is permissible in prosecutions for seduction, where intercourse between defendant and prosecutrix is denied, in order to show one very essential element of the offense charged — the act of intercourse. Even so, what baby?

Manifestly the baby must be identified as the one born of prosecutrix, and within the period of gestation from the time of the act for which defendant is being prosecuted. Here the baby, profert of which was allowed, was in no way described in the evidence. Whether it was the child of prosecutrix, and whether it was born before or after the time of the alleged seduction, nowhere is shown. In this state of the case, clearly it was error to overrule appellant's objection to its profert.

Reversed and remanded.

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Bluebook (online)

122 So. 609, 23 Ala. App. 193, 1928 Ala. App. LEXIS 310, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/watkins-v-state-alactapp-1928.

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