Grimmett v. State

• Decision Date: 23 October 1886
• Citation: 2 S.W. 631
• Parties: GRIMMETT <I>v.</I> STATE.<SMALL><SUP>1</SUP></SMALL>
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

2 S.W. 631

GRIMMETTv.

STATE.¹

Court of Appeals of Texas.

October 23, 1886.

Appeal from district court, Denton county.

This conviction was for an assault with intent to rape Marietta Batchelor, on the eighteenth day of May, 1886. A term of two years in the penitentiary was the penalty awarded.

The testimony of the prosecutrix, corroborated by that of Annie Grimmett, the defendant's daughter, comprehends the substance of the testimony for the state, and recites the circumstances briefly as follows: Witness' parents lived near the house occupied by the defendant, his family, and adult brother. Her parents leaving home on the day of the outrage, to be gone over night, the witness and her sister went to defendant's house to spend the night. The household, as then constituted, went to bed in the same room; witness and Annie occupying one bed together, and defendant and his wife another, William Grimmett, defendant's brother, sleeping alone. Some time during the night, after witness had been asleep, the defendant came to the bed occupied by her and Annie, and asked witness to turn over. About this time Mrs. Grimmett got out of bed, and defendant went back to bed. Thirty minutes later defendant came back, forced witness into position, tore one leg of her drawers down, forced her limbs apart, and, over the protest and entreaties of the witness to desist, penetrated her person with his male member. Witness was frightened, and did not scream. The operation was not especially painful, though this was her first and only sexual experience. Witness passed the remainder of that night at defendant's house, and also the greater part of the day. She reported the outrage to her mother, and to another lady, on the evening of the next day. She found no blood on her clothes as the result of the defendant's violence. Before the defendant came to witness' bed the second time, his wife, Mrs. Grimmett, came to it, and told witness that the defendant said if she (witness) would occupy his bed for a few minutes he would give her a nice new dress, to which proposal the witness replied that she "would see defendant in hell first." By one witness, the defense impeached the credibility of the witness Annie Grimmett, who testified that she lay near the prosecutrix, in the same bed, and heard and saw the transaction just as it was related by Miss Batchelor. Several witnesses supported the defendant's reputation for chastity, and a physician testified that the person of Marietta, if she was a virgin, could not be penetrated by the male organ of an adult without producing pain, soreness, and bleeding. It is to be added that the mother of the prosecutrix testified that, when she examined her daughter on the evening after the alleged outrage, she found one leg of her drawers torn from the waist-band to the ankle.

No appearance for appellant. Asst. Atty. Gen. Burts, for the State.

WILLSON, J.

We find in the record a bill of exceptions as follows: "Be it remembered that, on the trial of this cause, Annie Grimmett, a witness for the state, being on the witness stand, and under cross-examination, the defendant's counsel propounded the following question to her: `What did the defendant do after he got on Marietta?' to which question she answered. `He did what he wanted to, I reckon. I guess you know what he did.' At the answer of the witness the audience laughed, whereupon the court stopped the examination of the witness, and ordered the sheriff and his deputies, who were present, to remove the audience out of the court-room, and lock the doors, and keep the audience out of the room; which order was obeyed by the sheriff and his deputies. The audience was kept out, and the doors kept locked, during the balance of the cross-examination of said witness; to which order of the court, and act of the sheriff and his deputies, the defendant objected, which objection the court overruled. Whereupon the defendant excepted," etc.

Appended to this bill are the following remarks by the trial judge: "I sign this bill of exceptions with the following explanation: The defendant was upon trial for a rape charged to have been perpetrated upon a 16 year old girl, who, it was alleged by another witness, was raped while in bed with this witness. Annie Grimmett, the present witness, was only 14 years old, and is the daughter of defendant. The peculiar case, its necessarily vulgar details, the youth and sex of the witness, and the fact of her being defendant's daughter, taken together, rendered it impossible for her to...