Jeffries v. State

• Citation: 42 So. 801,89 Miss. 643
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Mississippi
• Decision Date: 11 February 1907
• Parties: WILLIAM JEFFRIES v. STATE OF MISSISSIPPI

42 So. 801

89 Miss. 643

WILLIAM JEFFRIES v. STATE OF MISSISSIPPI

Supreme Court of Mississippi

February 11, 1907

November 1906

FROM the circuit court of Marshall county, HON. JAMES B. BOOTHE Judge.

Jeffries the appellant, a negro, was indicted and tried for and convicted of a rape upon Beulah Price, a negro girl, and sentenced to the penitentiary for life. From the conviction and sentence he appealed to the supreme court.

It was shown by the state that the girl, Beulah Price, a cousin of the defendant's wife, and at the time about twelve years of age, went to the field where defendant was working to carry him some water; that under the pretense of getting her to help him find a lost axe he decoyed her to a secluded spot, and there by physical force, and in spite of her resistance, committed the crime; persuading her immediately afterward to tell, if she should be questioned, that she had been assaulted by an unknown white man. Over the objection of defendant, the state was allowed to prove, by the testimony of the girl and corroborating witnesses, that, although the girl at first said she had been assaulted by a white man whom she did not know, she afterwards, on the day after the crime was committed, stated to her aunt and to other persons, in the absence of the defendant, that he was the man who assaulted and raped her. The state was also allowed, over defendant's objection, to show in evidence that John Jeffries, a brother of the defendant, took the girl to Tennessee, shortly after the assault and just prior to the ensuing term of court; and that John Jeffries told her that he was taking her from the state to prevent her presence in court as a witness. It was not shown, however, that the defendant had anything to do with this action of his brother or that he had any knowledge of the same. In addition to the testimony of the girl as to defendant's guilt, other incriminating circumstances were shown by the testimony of other witnesses, strongly tending to prove that defendant had committed the crime. No evidence was offered by defendant.

Appellant assigned for error the admission of testimony over his objections, and the refusal of the court to grant the twelfth instruction asked by him. This instruction was as follows:

"The court instructs the jury, for the defendant, that if you believe from the evidence that there may be some person who committed the crime of which the defendant is charged, and that the name of that person has not been disclosed by the evidence, it is not required of the defendant to show the name of any such person."

Reversed and remanded.

W. A. Belk, and W. A. McDonald, for appellant.

The court below erred in not granting the twelfth instruction asked by appellant. The assaulted girl, Beulah Price testified that immediately after the assault she stated to her cousin and to her aunt that she had been assaulted by a white man who had no whiskers, and who was a stranger to her, and that he rode a red horse with a blazed face. After making such statement to her relatives, she changed her statements, as she admits in her testimony, and on the day after the assault she told her relatives that appellant, her cousin's husband, was the guilty party. It must follow that she was telling a falsehood to her relatives when she said the assault was committed by a white man or when she subsequently stated that appellant committed the assault. The jury, being unlearned in the law, might easily have concluded that, as appellant was in one sense implicated by her statement, it was incumbent on him to prove his...