Lee v. State

Decision Date24 February 1947
Docket Number36278.
Citation29 So.2d 211,201 Miss. 423
CourtMississippi Supreme Court
PartiesLEE v. STATE.

Suggestion of Error Overruled April 14, 1947.

See 30 So.2d 74.

Will S. Wells, of Jackson, for appellant.

Greek L. Rice, Atty. Gen., and R. O. Arrington Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.

ALEXANDER Justice.

The appellant was convicted of an assault with intent to ravish a female of previous chaste character, under Code 1942, Section 2361. The assigned errors which we shall discuss are: (1) the failure of the State to establish the corpus delicti; (2) the admission of a confession by accused; (3) admission of certain testimony; (4) the granting of the State's motion to reopen its case after both sides had rested; and (5) sentence under the wrong statute.

The following facts were testified to by witnesses for the State. The victim was awakened by severe blows upon her head evidently from an empty soft drink bottle. The screen window had been forced open and she saw a man at the window in the act of escaping. Neighbors saw a man leaving the premises at the time of the assault and the officers soon thereafter arrested appellant nearby and found him panting and out of breath as if he had been running and with his shoes and the lower part of his trousers wet.

Appellant was placed in jail and on the afternoon of the following day he was interrogated by two officers to whom he confessed that it was he who had broken in the room and struck the victim three times while she was asleep in bed; that he had watched and waited outside while she prepared for bed, and that his intent was to ravish. There is no question whether any coercion was used by these officers, but, on the contrary, defendant testified they had 'been nice to him' and had explained that his statement would be used against him and that such statement would be wholly voluntary. The details of the confession had never been suggested or known by any one other than the defendant. When he was requested to sign the statement after its reduction to writing, he refused to do so stating that during the morning two officers in the room and presence of the jailer 'had treated him kind of bad'. The interview was thereupon closed and his signature was not insisted upon.

The defendant testified that during the morning referred to, two plain clothes men had brought him to the office of the jailer and demanded that he confess the crime, and struck him twice with the warning that if he went 'down stairs and said he didn't do it, it will be mighty bad for you.' The said detectives were not introduced and the jailer denied that this incident occurred. The trial judge thereupon admitted the confession into the record.

The conduct of the two detectives, if true, would of course be indefensible and would warrant and receive our condemnation. Yet the issue of fact as well as credibility was for the trial judge upon such preliminary qualification, and we are not willing to disturb his conclusion. Street v. State Miss., 26 So.2d 678.

The confession being admitted, we are of the opinion that it was available to support the testimony adduced aliunde in establishing the corpus delicti. There was no room for doubt that the room had been burglariously entered and the assault and battery committed. The purpose of such entry and assault is necessarily provable circumstantially. Here the existence of a criminal intent is clear and a specific intent to ravish is, at least, consistent with the proven facts and reasonably inferable. A burglarious breaking is evidence of some unlawful purpose, Thompson v State, 124 Miss. 463, 86 So. 871; Moseley v State, 92...

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18 cases
  • People v. Washington
    • United States
    • New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division
    • May 21, 1979
    ...of coercion, since the defendant steadfastly denied having made the confession, he could not challenge its voluntariness (Lee v. State, 201 Miss. 423, 29 So.2d 211, 30 So.2d 74). The Supreme Court of the United States reversed and held that the accused is not so estopped because the due pro......
  • Cumbest v. State
    • United States
    • Mississippi Supreme Court
    • May 16, 1984
    ...provides for a greater penalty than the other, the state, as we held in Brooks v. State, 236 So.2d 751 (Miss.1970), and Lee v. State, 201 Miss. 423, 29 So.2d 211 (1947), may proceed under either. Nothing stated in McCrory or Bence should be construed as limiting this state's authority to pr......
  • Fondren v. State
    • United States
    • Mississippi Supreme Court
    • May 31, 1965
    ...was made, or the conduct of accused after the entry, or both.' See Moseley v. State, 92 Miss. 250, 45 So. 833 (1908). Lee v. State, 201 Miss. 423, 29 So.2d 211 (1947) involved an assault with intent to ravish a female of previously chaste character. It was shown that a screen window had bee......
  • Smith v. State, 92-KA-00813
    • United States
    • Mississippi Supreme Court
    • December 1, 1994
    ...to offer further testimony in surrebuttal." citing Roney v. State, Clark v. State. The Riley Court noted that both Lee v. State, 201 Miss. 423, 433, 29 So.2d 211, 212 (1947), and Summerville v. State, 207 Miss. 54, 63, 41 So.2d 377, 379 (1949), "the State was permitted to reopen for the pur......
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