Jeffries v. State

• Decision Date: 26 February 1925
• Docket Number: No. 24638.,24638.
• Citation: 146 N.E. 753,195 Ind. 649
• Parties: JEFFRIES et al. v. STATE.
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

195 Ind. 649

146 N.E. 753

JEFFRIES et al.

v.STATE.

No. 24638.

Supreme Court of Indiana.

Feb. 26, 1925.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Greene County; Thos. Van Buskirk, Judge.

Teddy Jeffries and William Morris were convicted of rape and they appeal. Affirmed.

Will R. Vosloh, of Bloomfield, and Alfred M. Beasley, of Linton, for appellants.

U. S. Lesh, Atty. Gen., for the State.

EWBANK, J.

Appellants were convicted of the crime of forcibly raping a girl 17 years old. She testified that the crime was committed by each of them, in turn, while out for a drive in an automobile. Each of them told the arresting officers, the next morning after the alleged assault, that he had had sexual intercourse with the complaining witness the night before, though each testified at the trial that he only hugged and kissed her, and tried, without success, to induce her to submit to him. On returning from the drive, they let the girl out of the car a square from her home, after midnight, and, as she met her father, “she was doubled over, limping, and trying to hollow at him, and crying,” with her clothing badly torn, and her body and limbs badly bruised. She described the acts of each defendant in the automobile, down in a woods far from any house, where the automobile was stopped, in language which reasonably could be understood only as meaning that, after overpowering her by force, each held her in turn while the other had sexual intercourse with her, although decency of speech was observed to a greater degree than was strictly necessary. But the proof of what they did and what they said at the time, and of what they admitted to the police officers the next morning, sufficiently supported the inference which the jury drew that the crime of rape was consummated by penetration. Bradburn v. State, 162 Ind. 689, 71 N. E. 133;Taylor v. State, 111 Ind. 279, 12 N. E. 400.

[1] Having correctly instructed the jury as to reasonable doubt, the presumptions in favor of defendants, and the rule as to concurrence of 12 minds in returning a verdict, the court gave an instruction telling them that they were the judges of the weight of the evidence and credibility of the witnesses, and that, if there was a conflict of testimony, the jury should reconcile it, if they could, on the theory that all the witnesses had told the truth, but, if they could not reconcile it, they should determine for themselves whom they would believe, and whom they would disbelieve. Counsel repeat more than once that their objection to this instruction is that it did “not go far enough,” in that it failed to instruct the jury further as to the presumption of innocence, by telling them that, if it could reasonably and consistently be done, they should “reconcile the evidence upon the theory that the defendants were innocent.” But if the instruction given was correct as far at it...