Barnes v. State

• Decision Date: 07 January 1890
• Citation: 7 So. 38,88 Ala. 204
• Parties: BARNES v. STATE.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

7 So. 38

88 Ala. 204

BARNES v. STATE.

Supreme Court of Alabama

January 7, 1890

Appeal from circuit court, Fayette county; S. H. SPROTT, Judge.

Indictment for rape. The defendant, James B. Barnes, was indicted for a rape on Mrs. Adeline Ballard, his wife's sister convicted, and sentenced to the penitentiary for life. The testimony of prosecutrix showed that the offense was committed on August 23, 1888, near defendant's house where she had been all day helping to discharge household duties for her sister, who was sick in bed; and on her way home in the evening, while in the public road, the defendant interrupted her, carried her aside into the woods, and forcibly ravished her. The defendant admitted that he had had sexual intercourse with the prosecutrix at the time and place named, but said that she met him there by appointment, and consented to the act; and further, that he had had intercourse with her on several occasions previous to the one here specified. The prosecution introduced George Ballard the husband of the prosecutrix, and the defendant objected to his examination, "because, the other witnesses having been put under the rule, the court had excused him, and allowed him to remain in the court-room; and because he was the husband of the prosecutrix, and his testimony could only be hearsay." The court overruled the objections, and the witness testified to a complaint made to him by his wife on the second night after the commission of the alleged offense they having slept at defendant's house the night before. Defendant asked said witness, on cross-examination, "if he was not at that time, and had not been before, jealous of his wife and the defendant;" also if on a certain day at defendant's house, when one Stewart sat down near Mrs. Ballard, "he (witness) did not order said Stewart to get up, and not to sit so near his wife." The court excluded each part of this evidence, on motion, and the defendant excepted. The defendant offered to testify, and also to prove by the mother of the prosecutrix, that on the morning of the said 23d August, while he and the prosecutrix were together at the spring near the house, where she was washing clothes, her mother came up, "and told him to go to the house, and said that George Ballard would be mad if he saw them together;" and he excepted to the exclusion of this evidence. John McCarver, as witness for the defendant, testified, in substance, that on the next morning after the rape was said to have been committed, George Ballard, the husband, told him of it, and they went together to the place where he said it was committed; that the ground was hard and had some leaves and trash on it, and he could not see any sign of a struggle; that he did not know it was the place where the rape occurred, and did not know that the party who pointed it out knew. Thereupon the solicitor moved to exclude this evidence from the jury, because the place examined was not sufficiently identified as the place where the rape occurred. The court sustained the motion, and the defendant excepted.

Nesmith & Sanford, for appellant.

W. L. Martin, Atty. Gen. for the State.

MCCLELLAN J.

The testimony of the witness Sid Adams was properly admitted. It tended to show the desire of the defendant to have carnal knowledge of the prosecutrix, as well as...