Brown v. State

Robinson, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The traverser was indicted under section 1 of Article 21 of the Code, for enticing and persuading one Cora Laypold, a girl under eighteen years of age, from the custody and control of her parents “for the purposes of prostitution.” At the trial below, quite a number of exceptions were taken, all of which however relate to the admissibility of certain evidence offered by the traverser. As to the first five -exceptions, it is sufficient to say that the evidence. was altogether irrelevant, and was therefore properly excluded. We cannot agree, however, with the Court in regard to the evidence offered in the sixth exception.

The question before the jury was whether the traverser had enticed or persuaded the prosecutrix from the custody and control of her mother, for the purposes of prostitution. The language of the statute is, any one who shall “persuade or entice from her usual place of abode, or from the custody and control of her parents,” &c. If the prosecutrix went to the house of the traverser of her own accord, and luithout any prompting or inducement on the part of the accused, then the indictment must fail. In Reg. vs. Olifier, 10 Cox’s Crim.

Cases, 403, where the traverser was indicted under 24 and 25 Victo., ch. 100, sec. 55, which provides “that whosoever shall unlawfully take or cause to be taken, any unmarried girl, being under the age of sixteen years, out of the possession and against the will of her father or mother, or of any other person having the lawful care or charge of her, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, ’ ’ Bramwell, B., said: “I am of opinion that if a young woman leaves her father’s house without any persuasion, inducement, or blandishment held out to her by a man, so that she has got fairly away from home, and then goes to him, although it may be his moral duty to return her to her parent's custody, yet his not doing so is no ⁴⁷⁴ infringement of this Act of Parliament, for the Act does not say he shall restore her, but only that he shall not take her away. ” Or if the prosecutrix went with the consent of her mother, or went for any purpose, other than the purposes of prostitution, the traverser was not guilty under this Act. Any evidence, then, which would aid' the jury in determining these questions was admissible. In support of the charge as laid in the indictment, the State proved that the traverser was the keeper of a bawdy house in Frederick City, and that the prosecutrix was a girl about sixteen years of age, living near Boonsboro, in Washington County; that she was brought to the house of the traverser by one Charles Thompson, that as soon as the traverser saw . ‘ “’■mu are nothing but a child,” to which the latter I am no child, and am over eighteen years of age. ” The traverser then sent for a conveyance, for the purpose of sending the girl home, and thereupon she began to cry, “and said she did not want to go home, ’ ’ and begged the traverser to let her stay, till she could get a place of service in Frederick. Now, in view of these facts, the evidence offered by the traverser, to show that, on the morning after the girl’s arrival, she made an effort to get a home for the girl in Frederick, ought to have been admitted.

The fact that the traverser was the keeper of a bawdy house was in itself prima facie evidence, that the girl was brought to her house, and permitted to remain there for the purposes of prostitution; and to rebut this, it was clearly competent for the traverser to show, that she permitted the girl to remain there at the request of the latter, and for the sole purpose of getting a home for her in Frederick; and that on the next morning she did in fact make an effort to get her a home. Whether the effort was made in good faith, or for the- purpose of concealing the real motives of the traverser in permitting ⁴⁷⁵