State v. . Keesler
Supreme Court of North Carolina
INDICTMENT for Incest, tried at Fall Terra, 1877, of Cherokee Superior Court, before Farches, J. The defendant was charged with having had an improper intercourse with his own daughter, and was found guilty by the jury, and upon motion of the defendant’s counsel, His Honor arrested the judgment upon the ground that the bill of indictment did not charge a criminal offence, and Teds? Solicitor for the State, appealed.
1Opinion of the Court
Bynun J.
The defendant is indicted for incest. This; offence was not indictable at common law, and as we have-no statute in this State declaring it to be a criminal offence, this indictment cannot be maintained. It is related that in the time of the Commonwealth in England, when the ruling-powers found it for their interest to put on the semblance of extraordinary strictness and purity of morals, incest and. wilful adultery were made capital crimes; but at the Restoration, when men from the abhorrence of the hypocrisy of the late times fell into a contrary extreme of licentiousness, it was not…
2Cited by9 opinions
- State v. . SaulsSupreme Court of North Carolina · 1925
- McCaskill v. StateSupreme Court of Florida · 1908
- State v. TuckerIndiana Supreme Court · 1910
- State v. JuddSupreme Court of Iowa · 1906
- State v. . DealSupreme Court of North Carolina · 1885
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