Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 5.djvu/289

 UNITED STATKS, f. DE QUrLFELDT. 277 �4. Same SubJect— SnroLATBD Dhfencb.— Where it àppears to the court from occurrences at the trial that the defendant probably inakes a false pretence of being a married woman and under the coercion of a husband, yet if the court improperly rejected competent and màte- rial evidence of the marriage, a new trial will be granted in order that the facts may be passed upon by a jury. The neceasity of pre- serving to the defendant the right of trial by jury is paramount to ail other considerations, and precludes the court not only from passing on the sufficiency of the proof rejected, but from taking further proof on the motion for a new trial as to the fact of marriage, so asto deter- mine whether the defendant had been injured by the error com- mitted. �6. Sakb! Subjbct— Makital CoBKcroN' HT THE Federal Cotjbtb. — Qumre: Whether the common-Iaw fiction that a married voman committing an ofiEence in the presence of her husband presTimably acts by his coercion, furnishes any excuse or exemption from the pen- alties imposed by an act of congress for the commission of statutory crimes, when the statute itself makes no such exception. The opin- ion is expressed by the district judge that the doctrine probably haa no place in the crlminal jurisprudence of the United States, but he declined to decide it in the absence of his brother judges. �On Motion for New Trial. �W. W. Murray, Dist. Att'y, and John B. Clough, Ass't Dist. Att'y, for the United States. �M. D. L. Stewart, J. S. Duval, and B. B. Barnes, for de- fendant. �Hammond, D. J- The defendant, heing arraigned upon an information charging her with counterfeiting coins, pleaded not guilty, and was put upon her trial. She is described in the information simply as "Annie Da Quilfeldt, otherwise known as Annie Egbert;" ail addition, suchas"wifeof A,B.," "widow," or "spinster," being omitted. On the trial, a witness, the detective who arrested her, was asked whether she was not living with Charles G. De Quilfeldt, who had j'ust been con- victed of counterfeiting, as his wif e ; whether they, at the time of arrest, called and recognized each other as such, and whether they were not reported to be man and wife among their iieighbors. This testimony was, on objection of the district attorney, excluded. There was proof tending to show that, when the defendan j was caught in the act of moulding the coins, this man, De Quilfeldt, was either present, or so ����