## Facts

- Robert Hoover, a Black man, participated in a marriage ceremony with a white woman in Alabama.
- Alabama law prohibited interracial marriages and treated such marriages as void.
- Hoover cohabited with the woman; because the marriage was void, the State treated the cohabitation as nonmarital and charged him with fornication.
- At trial, Hoover offered testimony that a local probate judge had told him it was lawful for him to marry a white woman.
- The trial court excluded the proffered testimony and the jury convicted Hoover of fornication.
- Hoover appealed, challenging the exclusion of the testimony and asserting that reliance on the judge’s advice and the ceremony should defeat criminal liability.

## Issues

1. Whether testimony that a probate judge told the defendant an interracial marriage was lawful was admissible as relevant to a fornication charge based on cohabitation under a void marriage.
2. Whether reliance on official legal advice or on a marriage ceremony that is void by statute can excuse or negate criminal liability for fornication arising from the cohabitation.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Alabama affirmed the conviction.
- The court held the probate-judge-advice testimony was properly excluded as legally irrelevant.
- The court held that a void interracial marriage confers no marital status; cohabitation under such a void marriage can support a fornication conviction.
- The court rejected reliance on a judge’s erroneous statement as a basis to avoid liability where the statute clearly prohibited the conduct.

## Legal Principles

- Ignorance or mistake of law is not a defense to a criminal charge when the law clearly prohibits the conduct.
- Reliance on erroneous legal advice from a public official, including a judge acting outside a judicial proceeding, does not authorize conduct forbidden by statute and does not create a defense.
- When a statute declares a class of marriages void, a ceremonial marriage within that class is a nullity and does not shield cohabitation from fornication/adultery laws.
- A mistake about the legal validity of a relationship is treated as a mistake of law, not a mistake of fact, and does not negate guilt on that basis.

## Conclusion

The court upheld Hoover’s fornication conviction, ruling that an interracial marriage void by statute could not create lawful marital cohabitation and that a defendant cannot rely on a probate judge’s contrary legal advice to excuse violation of a clear criminal law.


Hoover v. State, 59 Ala. 57 (Ala. 1877)