Commonwealth v. Taylor
| Decision Date | 29 May 1946 |
| Citation | 67 N.E.2d 237,319 Mass. 631 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH v. PERLEY R. TAYLOR. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
May 6, 1946.
Present: FIELD, C.
J., LUMMUS, DOLAN RONAN, & WILKINS, JJ.
Carnal Knowledge. Practice, Criminal, Exceptions: failure to save; New trial Discretionary control of evidence. Witness Cross-examination.
At the trial of an indictment charging carnal knowledge, evidence of conduct of the defendant with his eleven year old daughter and of statements made by him to her warranted a verdict of guilty. The record of an appeal under G. L. (Ter. Ed.) c. 278 Sections 31,
33A-33G, with an assignment of errors and a transcript of testimony received at the trial of an indictment charging carnal knowledge of the body of the defendant's daughter, where the defendant complained as to certain matters respecting which he had made no request and had saved no exception at the trial, disclosed no occasion for an exercise by this court of the power which it has to set aside a verdict in case of a miscarriage of justice.
No abuse of discretionary power was shown in a ruling by a judge at a criminal trial excluding further cross-examination of the wife of the defendant designed to show bias or prejudice on her part.
INDICTMENT, found and returned on February 7, 1946. The case was tried before Walsh, J.
A. F. Lyon, for the defendant. G. L. Rabb, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth.
The defendant has been found guilty of having had carnal knowledge of the body of his daughter Shirley Taylor. The case now comes before us upon his appeal, accompanied by an assignment of errors, a summary of the record, and a transcript of the evidence under the provisions of G. L (Ter. Ed.) c. 278, Sections 31, 33A-33G. See Commonwealth v. McDonald, 264 Mass. 324 , 334.
The defendant's first assignment of error is based on his exception to the denial of his motion for a directed verdict of not guilty. There was evidence that would have warranted the jury in finding the following facts: On December 11, 1945, the defendant came home at about 7:30 P.M. He had been drinking. His wife, the mother of Shirley, his daughter, who was then about eleven years of age, was absent from the home temporarily at that time. Shirley was the oldest of four children of the defendant and his wife. The defendant left the house to get his wife. He returned later accompanied by his nine year old son, who, at his direction, went to bed, and the defendant shut the door to the boy's bedroom. The defendant then took Shirley by the arms, pushed her into his bedroom, and told her to take down her pajamas and "to get in bed." He slipped her pajamas down, "unzippered . . . his pants" and pushed them down. Shirley having got upon the bed, he lay on top of her despite her efforts to push him off because he was hurting her, and remained there in motion for about ten minutes. Shirley was lying upon her back. The jury could find that at the expiration of that time he had accomplished his purpose. An examination of Shirley on December 12, 1945 (the day following the incident just above referred to), disclosed that her vagina had been penetrated by some object bigger than the vaginal opening. It was consistent with penetration by a penis. There was also evidence that the defendant had stated to Shirley after the alleged assault and on the night of its occurrence that "The germ goes inside your mother's body; it forms a baby," and that she, Shirley, "might come sick in a month or two." This evidence would warrant the jury in finding that Shirley's vagina had been penetrated in the course of the assault and in inferring that the defendant knew that he had penetrated her vagina. Other evidence tending to show the guilt of the defendant need not be recited. His motion for a directed verdict of not guilty was denied rightly.
Assignments of error 2 and 3. The error...
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