Ledley v. State
| Decision Date | 31 December 1853 |
| Citation | 4 Ind. 580 |
| Parties | Ledley v. The State |
| Court | Indiana Supreme Court |
APPEAL from the Montgomery Circuit Court.
The judgment is affirmed with costs.
D Newell and E. A. Greenlee, for the appellant.
R. A Riley, N. B. Taylor and J. Coburn, for the state.
Indictment for rape, taken by change of venue from Tippecanoe to Montgomery county. Pleas, not guilty and former acquittal. Trial by jury, verdict of guilty, motion for a new trial overruled, and judgment on the verdict. The evidence is made part of the record.
A series of propositions in relation to rape, headed "instructions asked by defendant," some of them marked in the margin "refused," and others not, signed by defendant's attorneys, are set out; and immediately following it is noted, that the following instructions were given in modification of those asked by the defendant. Then follow several legal propositions on the same subject, signed by the circuit judge. The object seems to have been to make up the record under section 325, 2 vol. R. S. 1852, page 112. The memoranda at the close, "refused and excepted to," must be signed by the party or his attorney, to bring him within the rule of practice prescribed in that section, and relates to civil cases. For criminal cases, vide ibid 377. But the R. S. of 1852 were not in force at the time of the trial, March, 1853. Jones v. Cavins, at the present term. [1] Under the old practice, the presentation of the instructions is equally defective. No exception appears to have been taken to them at the time. They can only be regarded as unnecessarily inserted by the clerk in the transcript--forming no part of the record. The questions sought to be raised by the instructions are not, therefore, judicially before the Court.
The plea of former acquittal is wholly untenable. It appears that Ledley, prior to the change of venue, had been tried and found guilty in the Tippecanoe Circuit Court on the same indictment. At his instance a new trial was granted and the venue changed to Montgomery. There the plea of former acquittal was put in. The indictment contains but one count. What the plea means by an implied second count we cannot easily see. Had the indictment contained two counts, on one of which he had been acquitted and on the other convicted, and a new trial had been granted, there might have been some plausibility in the plea. But as the record appears, the plea is a nullity, and if the Court treated it as such, no error was committed.
The evidence is too revolting to be detailed. There are certainly some very strong facts against the prisoner, tending to show his guilt, and from which a jury might draw such inference. The prosecuting witness stands wholly unimpeached, except some discrepancies between her evidence on the trial and that on the preliminary examination, which are to some extent explained. Otherwise the defence did not attempt to assail either her truth or chastity. Some parts of her evidence seem improbable, and some parts of her conduct are not to be reconciled with the vigorous resistance of a virtuous female under such circumstances. But that, too, is to some extent explained by her position in the prisoner's family. What seemed contradictory in her several examinations, or inconsistent in her conduct, might have been accounted for in the minds of the jury by that species of moral duress which the evidence tends to show that the prisoner exercised over her. She was young--only sixteen--and seemingly artless wholly inexperienced, and by no means intelligent. She came to the county as a member of the prisoner's family. That was her only home--he and his wife her only...
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Summerlin v. State, 1070S257
...in order to avoid a new trial. Warren v. State (1963), 243 Ind. 508, 188 N.E.2d 108; Murray v. State (1866), 26 Ind. 141; Ledley v. State (1853), 4 Ind. 580. For this reason an appellant cannot enlarge his objections to instructions on appeal. Lilford v. State (1965), 247 Ind. 149, 210 N.E.......
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Anderson v. State
...to lay down any rule upon that subject as applicable to all cases involving the necessity of showing a reasonable resistance. Ledley v. State, 4 Ind. 580;Pomeroy v. State, 94 Ind. 101;Com. v. McDonald, 110 Mass. 405; 2 Bish. Crim. Law, § 1122. One David B. Anderson was called as a witness f......
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Grimes v. State, 3--375A42
...662, 271 N.E.2d 411, 416, citing Warren v. State (1963), 243 Ind. 508, 188 N.E.2d 108; Murray v. State (1866), 26 Ind. 141; Ledley v. State (1853), 4 Ind. 580. A defendant may not stand idly by while the trial court makes an error in instructing the jury and then claim, on appeal, that beca......
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Felton v. State
...and that was as far as the court was required to go under our decided cases, and others of recognized authority in this State." In Ledley v. State, supra, the said: "On the subject of resistance, a recent writer says, that if resistance is overcome by physical force, or her will overpowered......