Lockhart v. State
| Decision Date | 08 January 1884 |
| Docket Number | 11,274 |
| Citation | 92 Ind. 452 |
| Parties | Lockhart v. The State |
| Court | Indiana Supreme Court |
From the Washington Circuit Court.
The judgment is affirmed.
J. A Zaring, for appellant.
F. T Hord, Attorney General, W. T. Branaman, Prosecuting Attorney and W. H. Paynter, for the State.
Upon an indictment charging an assault and battery with intent to commit a rape, appellant was tried, convicted, and, over a motion for a new trial, sentenced to imprisonment in the State's prison. The overruling of the motion for a new trial is the only error assigned in this court.
The evidence is conflicting, and does not make a very strong case against appellant, but having been regarded as sufficient by the jury and the court below, and tending to support the conviction, we can not reverse the judgment upon the weight of the evidence.
It is insisted that the court below erred in propounding certain questions to the girl assaulted, and requiring her to answer. It appears by the record that she was attached for a failure to obey a subpoena, and that when on the witness stand she refused to answer questions propounded to her by the attorney for the State. After having compelled her to answer by threatening her with imprisonment, the court, before the attorney for the State had completed his examination, propounded to her the following questions, to which she made the following answers:
To all of these questions appellant objected and excepted, and his counsel now insists that in propounding them the court committed an error to his prejudice. It is especially objected that she should not have been asked as to relationship of Mrs. Lockhart to the appellant.
We think that there is no available error in this. The witness was not only an unwilling witness, but so perverse that she answered the State's attorney only when threatened with imprisonment. When she did answer, it was generally in contradiction of another of the State's witnesses. It must have been very patent to the court below that it was not her purpose to tell the whole truth in relation to the case, if, indeed, any portion of the truth. The court had the right, we think, as the attorney for the State would have had, to ascertain from her, if possible, her feeling and purpose in the case. If appellant had hired her to stay away, we know of no reason why the court might not have compelled her to state the fact to the jury. It is not the province of the court to shield the guilty or convict the innocent, but to see to it that exact justice is done to the State and the accused. For this purpose the judge may propound to witnesses of this character all such proper questions as may throw light upon their statements, and especially upon the motives that actuate them.
It would doubtless have been proper for the court to have asked the witness as to whether or not the appellant employed or induced her to absent herself from the court, and to refuse to testify against him, or to testify falsely. We know of no reason why the attorney for the State might not have asked such a question. After she answered as to the relationship of Mrs. Lockhart to appellee, we think it would have been proper for the attorney for the State to ask her whether appellant was present when Mrs. Lockhart employed her to absent herself from the court; whether Mrs. Lockhart was acting for him with his knowledge or by his procurement.
Such questions would have been proper not only as bearing upon her motives, but also as bearing upon the guilt or innocence of appellant.
Some such questions seem to have been asked her by the State's attorney, as we find answers from her that appellant knew nothing about his mother hiring her to stay away from court; that she, the witness, had not seen him since his arrest.
To have asked her about the relationship, without any purpose of in some way connecting the acts of Mrs. Lockhart with appellant would not have been proper, and after the witness...
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