Doherty v. State
| Decision Date | 12 February 1919 |
| Docket Number | (No. 5278.) |
| Citation | 208 S.W. 932 |
| Parties | DOHERTY v. STATE. |
| Court | Texas Court of Criminal Appeals |
Appeal from District Court, Shelby County; Daniel Walker, Judge.
L. L. Doherty was convicted of rape, and appeals. Reversed and remanded.
Sanders & Sanders, of Center, for appellant.
E. A. Berry, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
Appellant was convicted of rape of his stepdaughter, a girl under 15 years of age.
The prosecutrix was placed upon the stand as a witness in behalf of the state and denied most emphatically that appellant had ever had intercourse with her. The state undertook then to prove its case by circumstances. These are unsatisfactory, and are insufficient to form the basis of a conviction, which is practically conceded by the Assistant Attorney General. Quite a number of witnesses testified, and the case spreads out over many pages. Many things were brought into the case that seem to have no bearing upon it and have no relation to it. By way of illustration, a witness was placed upon the stand who testified that defendant came to his store and bought a lot of goods, among others, a piece of silk and other dry goods. He testified he did not know for whom they were bought, but the bill amounted to something over $17. What this had to do with this case is in no manner undertaken to be shown. Whether bought for the girl or not is not shown, nor attempted to be shown. There are quite a number of bills of exceptions, each covering many pages. Each of these practically gives the entire setting of the case so that there might be no question of the fact of the pertinency of objections to the evidence introduced.
The defendant used his wife as a witness. The state took her upon cross-examination and entered a wide field. It was developed that she was carried before the grand jury; that she did not want to go before that body and testify, and was carried a second time, and was asked many questions which were claimed not to be germane in any way to her examination in chief by the defendant. This phase of the testimony seems to have been gone into with a view of the impeachment of the wife. This impeachment was to get before the jury statements imputed to her to the effect that she had stated that the prosecutrix had stated that appellant had had intercourse with the prosecutrix. This is carrying the rule of cross-examination and impeachment rather beyond the limit. We think it hardly necessary to discuss this character of...
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Wall v. State, 40473
...this evidence to impeachment in the written charge to the jury.' See also Kern v. Cook, 155 Tex. 360, 287 S.W.2d 174. In Doherty v. State, 84 Tex.Cr.R. 552, 208 S.W. 932, this Court 'The state had failed to make a case, and, whether this testimony be legitimate or not, it could be of no ser......
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Vasquez v. State
...601, 267 S.W. 727; Petty v. State, 94 Tex.Cr.R. 114, 249 S.W. 849; Galaviz v. State, 82 Tex.Cr.R. 377, 198 S.W. 946; Doherty v. State, 84 Tex.Cr.R. 552, 208 S.W. 932; Word v. State, 12 Tex.App. 174; 35 Tex.Jur. sec. 58, p. 847. Unless there is such proof the State has failed to prove the co......