Melone v. Com.

• Decision Date: 16 April 1924
• Citation: 261 S.W. 17,202 Ky. 659
• Parties: MELONE v. COMMONWEALTH.
• Court: Kentucky Court of Appeals

261 S.W. 17

202 Ky. 659

MELONE v. COMMONWEALTH.

Court of Appeals of Kentucky.

April 16, 1924

Appeal from Circuit Court, McCracken County.

St Clair Melone was convicted of attempt to rape, and appeals. Affirmed.

J. Bell Nichols, of Paducah, for appellant.

Frank E. Daugherty, Atty. Gen., and C. F. Creal, Asst. Atty. Gen for the Commonwealth.

McCANDLESS J.

Under an indictment charging him with the crime of rape upon a female under 12 years of age, appellant was convicted of attempting to commit such crime, and on this appeal contends that the indictment was defective in that the word "ravish" was omitted from the descriptive part, which reads:

"The said St. Clair Melone, in the said county of McCracken, on the 28th day of September, and before the finding of this indictment, did feloniously and forcibly commit a rape upon the person of Stella May Gray, she being a female under 12 years of age, by forcibly and with force and violence causing and forcing her to have sexual intercourse with him against her will and consent."

It may be said that at common law certain words were considered especially apt and appropriate in the description of crime, and were given a technical meaning which by long usage became known as "words of art," and were considered indispensable in an indictment.

In the first half of the last century this court had no criminal jurisdiction, and trial courts closely followed common-law precedents. Indeed, this was the only way in which uniformity of practice was maintained. Even after criminal jurisdiction was acquired and the Code adopted, the great jurists who composed the court were men who had grown up under that form of practice, and in many of the earlier decisions they stressed the importance of the use of technical words in describing common-law offenses; but of late years the liberal rule of criminal pleading authorized by the Code is fully sanctioned, and now synonymous words or expressions conveying the same meaning are permitted in lieu of technical ones.

The word "ravish" signifies:

"To constuprate, to deflower by violence, to have criminal knowledge of a woman by force and against her consent." 33 Cyc. 1536.

"Equal to and having the same import of having carnal knowledge with force." Elschlep v. State, 11 Tex.App. 301.

"To have carnal knowledge of a woman by force and against her consent." Webster's New International Dictionary.

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