2 thoughts on “Should Adultery Be Illegal?”

  1. I recall a case back when I was a Magistrate. One of my fellow Magistrates filed a lawsuit alleging alienation of affections

    From the N&R:

    ALIENATION-OF-AFFECTION SUIT SETTLED\ A GUILFORD COUNTY MAGISTRATE CLAIMS A POLICE OFFICER SEDUCED HIS WIFE AND DESTROYED THEIR MARRIAGE.
    BY MIKE FUCHS Staff Writer Oct 9, 2000 Updated Jan 23, 2015

    ” The case of a Guilford County magistrate who filed an alienation of affection lawsuit against a Greensboro police officer ended in a pretrial settlement Monday.

    Terms of the settlement were sealed under court order.In a lawsuit originally filed in Guilford County District Court in 1990, magistrate Chuck Alberson accused officer Samuel Jones Jr. of seducing his wife and destroying his marriage.

    Jones denied the allegations.

    Alberson refiled the suit in superior court in 1999 because district court judges did not want to hear the case, his attorney Jim Pfaff said. Pfaff said the judges knew both men and wanted to avoid a conflict of interest.

    The case was set to be heard Monday morning. But attorneys for both sides settled before court began.

    “We’ve been in the process of negotiating for some time,’ Pfaff said.

    Pfaff and Marshall Dotson III, Jones’ attorney, declined to comment on the nature of the settlement because the terms are to be kept confidential under court order.

    Jones, a detective in the Greensboro Police Department’s criminal investigation division, did not return a telephone message left on his voice mail Monday.

    Alberson, who was out of the office Monday, could not be reached for comment.

    In the suit, Alberson sought more than $20,000 in punitive and compensatory damages.

    Alberson said Jones “maliciously interfered with the marriage’ in seducing his wife before their separation and divorce, according to court papers.

    Jones denied the allegations, blaming the breakup of Alberson’s marriage primarily on his “on-going marital misconduct and abuse of his spouse,’ Dotson said in court papers.

    To be successful, Alberson would have to prove Jones stole his wife’s love under an old common law doctrine still on the books in North Carolina and a dozen or so other states.

    In a nationally publicized Alamance County case, a jury in 1997 awarded Dorothy Hutelmyer$1 million for alienation of affection and criminal conversation, a legal phrase that refers to sexual intercourse or adultery.

    Hutelmyer sued ex-husband Joseph Hutelmyer’s second wife, Margie “Lynne’ Cox, for breaking up their marriage.

    In July, a Burlington man filed a $40,000 alienation of affection suit against a Louisiana man he claims seduced his wife after they met on the Internet.

    Three Randolph County women also filed alienation of affection lawsuits earlier this year.”

    Perhaps civil law suit might be best to deal with adultery matters rather make it crime.

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