People v. Ambach
| Decision Date | 21 December 1910 |
| Citation | 93 N.E. 310,247 Ill. 451 |
| Parties | PEOPLE v. AMBACH. |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Error to Criminal Court, Cook County, Richard S. Tuthill, Judge.
Edward Ambach was convicted of rape, and brings error. Reversed and remanded.
Charles E. Erbstein and Louis Greenberg, for plaintiff in error.
W. H. Stead, Atty. Gen., and John E. W. Wayman, State's Atty. (Robert E. Crow, of counsel), for the People.
Plaintiff in error was convicted in the criminal court of Cook county of the crime of rape and his punishment fixed at imprisonment in the penitentiary for one year. The indictment charged him with having committed rape by having carnal knowledge of Annie Lawrence, a female under 16 years of age. The prosecuting witness, Annie Lawrence, was the only witness who testified for the prosecution, and plaintiff in error was the only witness who testified in his behalf. At the conclusion of the evidence, by agreement between the state's attorney and counsel for plaintiff in error, the court instructed the jury orally. The grounds relied upon by plaintiff in error for reversal of the judgment are that the evidence is not sufficient to sustain the verdict and judgment and that the court erred in giving instructions.
Annie Lawrence testified she was born in 1893, and was at the time of the commission of the alleged offense residing with her mother in the city of Chicago. Plaintiff in error was rooming at her mother's house. She testified that on the evening of April 15, 1908, her mother was absent from the house; that she (the witness) had a headache, and was lying on a couch in the front room of the house, with her clothes on; that plaintiff in error came in the room, stayed a few minutes, ‘lifted up my clothes, and then he got the best of me; he opened his clothes; he put his private person into my private person.’ The witness did not tell her mother for two or three days-said she was afraid. She also testified plaintiff in error had done the same thing about two weeks before. This is the substance of the material testimony of the prosecuting witness on direct examination. On cross-examination she was shown by counsel for plaintiff in error, Charles E. Erbstein, a paper bearing her signature, and purporting to have been sworn to by her before said Erbstein, which she admitted she signed in Erbstein's office. The paper is as follows:
‘Anna Lawrence.
‘Subscribed and sworn to before me this 23d day of November, A. D. 1909.
‘Charles E. Erbstein.’
At the time the paper was signed the witness had gone to Mr. Erbstein's office with her mother. Mr. Erbstein had shortly before that defended her mother upon a criminal charge, and the mother, subsequent to the time of the alleged rape, married the brother of plaintiff in error. The witness testified that Mr. Erbstein asked her if she knew why she had been brought to his office, and that she replied she came to tell the truth; that Erbstein told her, if she was in fear of her mother or any one else, he did not want her to stay in his office; that Erbstein then asked her whether she had ever had intercourse with plaintiff in error, and that she replied that she had not; that Erbstein asked her whether she was telling the truth, and she replied she was. The witness testified she understood she was asked whether plaintiff in error was the first man who had had intercourse with her, and that she said, ‘No, he was not; that another man by the name of Prudam was the first man who had intercourse with her.’ The witness testified that she was in no fear when she signed the paper, and she was not compelled to sign it by anybody. She further testified she did not know the meaning of the term ‘rape,’ and she had never been told that if a man had intercourse with a girl under 16 years of age it was rape.
Plaintiff in error testified he was at the time of the trial 26 years of age, and was on the day of the alleged crime rooming in the house of the mother of the prosecuting witness, but denied that he had intercourse with the prosecuting witness at the time alleged, or at any other time.
The circumstances and surroundings under which the statement above set out was obtained, together with the witness' explanation of what she understood she was signing, tend to affect its value as impeachment or as discrediting the witness. But, aside from the paper, the truth of the charge rests upon the unsupported testimony of the prosecuting witness, contradicted by the testimony of the plaintiff in error. This would not alone justify a reversal of the judgment; but it is apparent that there is that in the testimony of the prosecuting witness, leaving out of consideration the statement signed by her, which must naturally excite some suspicion and distrust. The case made by the evidence was such that the instructions as to the law governing the case and the rights of defendant should have been accurate and free from prejudicial error.
The court instructed the jury that circumstantial evidence is competent legal evidence, and if they were convinced of the truth of the charge, beyond a reasonable doubt, from facts and circumstances in proof, they would be authorized to convict the defendant; also that ...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
People v. Weathers
...until the jurors determine from such evidence that guilt has been established. Flynn v. People, 222 Ill. 303, 78 N.E. 617; People v. Ambach, 247 Ill. 451, 93 N.E. 310; People v. Israel, 269 Ill. 284, 109 N.E. 969; People v. Bermingham, 301 Ill. 513, 134 N.E. 54.' (People v. Long (1950), 407......
-
People v. Touhy
...prevail during the whole trial but only ‘until something happens.’ The instruction is unlike the instruction condemned in People v. Ambach, 247 Ill. 451, 93 N. E. 310, and the objection is unfounded. An instruction of similar import but in different language was approved in the Rongetti Cas......
-
State v. Schonberg
...to ignore them is error. Rev. Codes 1905, Sec. 9984; Chicago Union Traction Co. v. O'Brien, 219 Ill. 303, 76 N.E. 341; People v. Ambach, 247 Ill. 451, 93 N.E. 310; Reeves v. State, 34 Tex. Crim. Rep. 483, 31 382; People v. Hite, 8 Utah 461, 33 P. 254; Long v. State, 23 Neb. 33, 36 N.W. 310;......
-
People v. Gray
...the same parties, other than the one charged in the indictment, could be proven. See, also, as bearing on this question, People v. Ambach, 247 Ill. 451, 93 N. E. 310;Johnson v. People, 202 Ill. 53, 66 N. E. 877; and David v. People, 204 Ill. 479, 68 N. E. 540. On principle there can be no d......