State v. Morrison

The opinion of the Court was delivered by

PASHMAN, J.

We have held today in a companion case, State v. Smith, 85 N.J. 193 (1981), that a husband could be convicted of raping his own wife under our former rape statute, N.J.S.A. 2A:138-1. In Smith, we considered the common law marital exemption from rape, which was never expressly adopted in this State, and determined that such an exemption would not have applied to defendant’s acts against his estranged wife. The presence of additional circumstances here offers even more compelling reasons than those in Smith for holding that defendant could be…