State v. Hall

• Decision Date: 12 November 1901
• Parties: STATE v. HALL.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

65 S.W. 248

164 Mo. 528

STATE v. HALL.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 2.

November 12, 1901.

RAPE — INDICTMENT — SUFFICIENCY — CRIMINAL LAW — APPEAL — PRESERVATION OF ERRORS.

1. Alleged errors to which no exceptions were saved will not be considered as a part of the record, and will not be reviewed, though contained in the transcript.

2. The sufficiency of an indictment will be reviewed on appeal, though no motion to quash or in arrest of judgment was filed and preserved.

3. An indictment for rape, under Laws 1895, p. 149, is sufficient, which charged that the defendant did unlawfully and feloniously make an assault on one M., the defendant being a person over the age of 16 years, and M. being an unmarried female of previously chaste character, and between the ages of 14 and 18 years of age, to wit, of the age of 14 years, and that he had carnal knowledge of and abused her; being substantially in the language of the statute.

Appeal from circuit court, Cass county; W. L. Jarrott, Judge.

W. R. Hall was convicted of rape, and he appeals. Affirmed.

At the January term, 1900, of the circuit court of Cass county, the grand jury returned the following indictment: "The grand jurors for the state of Missouri, summoned from the body of Cass county, impaneled, charged, and sworn, upon their oath present that W. R. Hall, late of the county aforesaid, on the 25th day of September, 1899, at the county of Cass, state aforesaid, did unlawfully and feloniously make an assault upon one Barbara Mast, he, the said W. R. Hall, being then and there a person over the age of sixteen years, and she, the said Barbara Mast, being then and there an unmarried female of previously chaste character, and between the ages of fourteen and eighteen years of age, to wit, of the age of fourteen years, and her, the said Barbara Mast, he, the said W. R. Hall, did then and there unlawfully and feloniously have carnal knowledge of and abuse, against the peace and dignity of the state." The defendant was arrested, and on his applications the cause was continued from time to time until October 1, 1900, on which last-mentioned date he was arraigned in open court and entered his plea of not guilty, and on the same day was tried before a jury duly impaneled and sworn, who rendered a verdict of guilty as charged in the indictment, and assessed his punishment at imprisonment in the county jail for six months, and a fine of $500. Motions for new trial and in arrest were filed and overruled, and sentence was pronounced in accordance with the verdict. Leave to file a bill of exceptions on or before January 10, 1901, was granted, but defendant failed to file the same.

Jas. T. Burney and A. A. Whitsett, for ppellant. E. C. Crow, Atty. Gen., and Perry S. Rader, for the State.

GANTT, J. (after stating the facts).

The failure to file a bill of exceptions precludes an examination of any of the errors complained of in the motions for new trial and in arrest, inasmuch as no exceptions appear to have been saved to the action of the court in overruling them, and they constitute no part of the record, though the clerk has...