Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, January 21, 1993 TAG: 9301210247
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE HUDSON and LON WAGNER STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
LATEST APPEAL WAS 1961
A century ago, the Virginia Supreme Court offered its philosophy on the state's seduction statute."There are women in whose presence every evil thought stands abashed," the judges wrote in 1895. "They are guarded by their innocence and purity, and need no other protection.
"There are others whose dispositions are more easy and complaisant. . . . To . . . save them from the arts of the seducer was the object of this law."
The law has been on the books unchanged since 1887. Prosecutors in Western Virginia said they could not remember any cases in the past few decades when the law had been used. The most recent appeal of a seduction conviction that reached the state high court came in 1961, according to the Code of Virginia.
In that case, the Virginia Supreme Court threw out the conviction of a 19-year-old who had fathered a child with a girl two years younger. The court said there was not enough evidence of a marriage promise.
The statute calls for a prison sentence of up to 10 years for a man who seduces a woman of "chaste character" with a promise of marriage. Over the years, most cases have typically resulted in sentences of two to five years.
If the man is married and seduces a woman of chaste character, he would be guilty whether or not he had promised marriage.
In an 1899 case, Joseph L. Flick, an Augusta County farmhand in his 40s, was charged with seducing his employer's 16-year-old daughter. The father hauled Flick before a justice of the peace. Flick admitted his guilt, although he said he had loved her more "in a week" than he had loved his wife "in a lifetime."
"You have ruined me," the father told Flick.
"Yes," Flick replied, "you would do me right if you would take that gun and kill me."
The state Supreme Court upheld Flick's conviction and five-year prison sentence, calling his conduct "criminal and infamous." The court said deciding such cases was difficult, because it required that judges and juries "follow `the trail of the serpent' throughout his dark and devious path."