Jones v. State

• Decision Date: 20 November 1890
• Parties: JONES v. STATE.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

8 So. 383

90 Ala. 628

JONES v. STATE.

Supreme Court of Alabama

November 20, 1890

Appeal from city court of Mobile; O. J. SEMMES, Judge.

Upon the evidence, on a trial for assault with intent to commit rape, the defendant requested the court to give the following charges in writing to the jury: "(1) If the jury believe all the evidence, they ought not to find the defendant guilty of an assault with intent to rape. (2) The court charges the jury that, under the evidence in this case, they cannot find the defendant guilty of an assault with intent to rape." The court refused to give these charges, and defendant thereupon duly excepted to the refusal to give each charge.

G L. & H. T. Smith, for appellant.

W L. Martin, Atty. Gen., for the State.

CLOPTON J.

Under the penal statutes of this state, when the female is not an imbecile, or is not rendered unconscious or bodily weak by the administration of any drug or other substance, or is not deceived by the false personation of her husband, or is not under 10 years of age, force is an essential element of the offense of rape. Code, §§ 3736-3740; Dawkins v State, 58 Ala. 376. And on a charge of an assault with intent to commit rape, the evidence, to be sufficient to justify conviction, should show such acts and conduct of the accused, that there is no reasonable doubt of his intention to gratify his lustful desire against the consent of the female, notwithstanding resistance on her part. Lewis v State, 35 Ala. 380. The testimony of the woman, whose per son the defendant is charged with intent to ravish, is the only evidence showing the facts and circumstances at the time. She testified that, as she was approaching a swamp, through which the public road runs, she passed the accused with a bucket in his hand, ostensibly engaged in picking blackberries; after she had passed him some feet, and just as she stepped upon the south end of an elevated plank-walk, which runs along-side the public road 60 or 70 feet, and when within a few feet of the edge of the swamp, she felt something like somebody putting his hands on her shoulders; she heard no footsteps behind her, but, just before she got to the north end of the walk, she turned and saw defendant following very close, and asked what he meant, to which he replied, "Stop right there," and gratify his desire, using language unfit to be repeated; and that she immediately screamed and ran north, and he immediately ran south. The defendant proved a good character. In Com. v. Merrill, 14 Gray, 415, it is said: "The nature of the charge [assault with intent to commit rape] presupposes that the intent of the prisoner was not carried out. It is therefore necessary that the acts and conduct of the prisoner should be shown to be such that there can be no reasonable doubt as...