Frank Sinatra Arrest

 
The Frank Sinatra arrest took place in Hoboken, N.J., on Nov. 27, 1938 (view the Frank Sinatra mugshot). The arresting authority was the Bergen County Sheriff's Department. Sinatra was arrested on a morals charge.

Whoa! A morals charge? That sounds bad! Yes, it does, but don't get carried away. Sinatra was essentially arrested for allegedly reneging on a promise to marry. You read that right. The "morals charge" in the Frank Sinatra arrest was an archaic tort law arising out of common law called "breach of promise."

The common law practice dated back centuries: When a man got engaged to a woman, the man was considered to have made a promise that was looked at, under common law, as a binding contract to wed. If the man backed out of the engagement, he therefore was considered, under "breach of promise," to have broken a contract to wed.

In late 1938, a former girlfriend of Sinatra's accused him of backing out of an engagement. She complained to the local law enforcement agency, which carried out the Frank Sinatra arrest, on grounds of "breach of promise." The case was dismissed in early 1939, and Sinatra went on with his life.

The Wikipedia entry on "breach of promise" says that the law's recognition of the idea faded away in the early to mid-20th century (not soon enough for Sinatra!). Wikipedia states:

Some of the original theory behind this tort was based on the idea that a woman would be more likely to give up her virginity to a man if she had his promise to marry her; if he subsequently refused marriage it was considered that this lack of virginity would make her future search for a suitable mate more difficult or even impossible.

However, in the 18th and 19th centuries, the main factors were compensation for the denial of the woman's expectations of becoming "established" in a household (supported by her husband's wealth), and/or possible damage to her reputation — since there were a number of ways that the reputation of a young never-married woman of the "genteel" classes could be damaged by a broken engagement, or an apparent period of intimacy which did not end in a publicly-announced engagement, even if few people seriously thought that she had lost her virginity.

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