People v. Chapman

• Decision Date: 01 July 1886
• Citation: 62 Mich. 280,28 N.W. 896
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court
• Parties: PEOPLE v. CHAPMAN.

28 N.W. 896

62 Mich. 280

PEOPLE v. CHAPMAN.

Supreme Court of Michigan

July 1, 1886

Error to Wayne.

The Attorney General, for the People.

Allan H. Frazer, for defendant and appellant.

MORSE J.

Under our statutes, which render all persons aiding, assisting, or abetting in the commission of a crime, whether present or not present, liable to indictment, trial, and punishment as principals, the respondent was proceeded against, tried, and convicted of rape upon the person of his wife, Maggie Chapman. How.St. � 9545. At the time of the trial the alleged actual perpetrator of the crime, James Reagan, had been convicted of the offense, and the testimony of defendant's guilt was mainly derived from his evidence and that of the wife.

The principal objection goes to the merits of the case. It is claimed by defendant's counsel, in an elaborate argument that the evidence does not warrant the conviction of the defendant. The theory of the prosecution was that an agreement was made between the respondent and Reagan that, if the husband could catch Reagan in bed with Mrs. Chapman, or in the act of sexual intercourse, by which the husband would be furnished with evidence to obtain a divorce from his wife on the ground of adultery, Reagan should be paid $25 by respondent; that, in pursuance of this plan Jeremiah Chapman and Oscar Chapman, a brother of the accused went into a room of the house where respondent lived, and bored a hole through the partition, where they could see into the part of the house where the wife was, or peeped through a partly-opened door; that Reagan went in and committed a rape upon Mrs. Chapman, who resisted the outrage, but not successfully; that the husband and his brother heard her screams, and witnessed her struggles, without offering to interpose in her aid; that Reagan knew they were there, watching him; and that, after the crime was committed, or put at its completion, the respondent and Oscar burst into the room, the husband exclaiming, "Now I have caught you." The defendant and his brother testified and maintained that no such bargain was entered into with Reagan; but, on the contrary, the husband being jealous and suspicious of his wife, they hid in the house for the purpose of verifying such mistrust; that Mrs. Chapman was a willing participant in adultery with Reagan; and that, while they were in the act, they rushed into the room, respondent grabbing a chair, saying, "I have caught you now right in the act; I have a notion to paralyze both of you."

The argument of the defendant's counsel is that the crime advised and bargained for with Reagan by respondent was not the crime committed, but adultery, and that the mere presence of the husband in the adjoining room, without any participation whatever in the offense, could not make him guilty of Reagan's independent crime; that his mental approbation was not sufficient, but his assent, to come within the statute, must have been manifest by some act of assistance in the perpetration of the rape. We are cited to a number of authorities as sustaining these propositions. Not one of them is applicable to the present case. If they were, they would not be authority for this court.

If the story of Maggie Chapman be true, and it appears she has convinced 24 men of its truthfulness beyond a reasonable doubt, this husband is guilty of sufficient aid in the commission of the foulest of crimes to warrant his conviction as a principal under our laws. She testifies that Reagan caught her by the throat, threw her down, and forced her to submit to his lust; that she tried her best to push him away, and prevent him from accomplishing his design, and hallooed for help; that, when her husband came in, she said to him, "Oh, dear, kill him!" but respondent pushed her away from him, and soon thereafter he, his brother Oscar, and Reagan went away together, apparently on friendly terms. It appears also that in three days after the commission of the rape or adultery, as the case may be, the respondent filed his bill for divorce upon the ground of the adultery of his wife with Reagan. He took no steps to prosecute Reagan, and a brother of Mrs. Chapman testified that soon after the alleged rape he had a conversation with respondent in which the brother asked him, "Why didn't you shoot him?" Chapman replied, "I didn't want to shoot him." The brother then asked him if he was a friend to Reagan, and he said he was.

The cases, and text-books cited by defendant's counsel lay down the general doctrine, which is correct in principle, that the mere presence of a person when a murder or rape is being committed, without any previous agreement or conspiracy in furtherance of the crime, and doing nothing by word or act to encourage or sanction the perpetration of the same, will not hold him in the law in any degree guilty of the particular crime committed, although by his interference he might have prevented it. Such person may not be entirely guiltless in the eyes of the law, as the promptings of humanity, as well as his duty to society, demand that he shall use such means as he can to prevent injury and wrong to his fellows; and, under the common law, if of full age, such presence, without endeavor to hinder the commission of the felony, or to apprehend the offender, was highly criminal, and punishable by fine and imprisonment. But it did not make him guilty, either as principal or accessory, of the crime thus committed in his presence. 2 Hawk. P.C. p. 442, � 10; 1 Hale, P.C. 439; Steph.Sum.Crim.Law, c. 3, p. 7. But the case at bar is one in which aid and assistance was rendered. The husband was not a mere passive looker-on in the proceedings. Reagan knew he was in the next room, in sight of his work; and when the wife screamed, and respondent did not interfere, he knew that the husband was willing he should succeed in the accomplishment of the intercourse by force, if necessary,--an intercourse which had been bargained for by the husband. And the presence of the husband in the next room, waiting to catch the parties together, known to Reagan, both as to the presence, and the purpose of such presence, imparted to him a confidence in his undertaking. And the husband intentionally gave reason for such confidence. By the lifting of his finger or the opening of his mouth he could have prevented the injury to his wife, but he did not do so. And he was ready to pay for the services of Reagan, and to profit by his crime. Reagan swears that he told him that evening, after the transaction, as the three, respondent, Oscar, and himself were going over to Miller's, "You are the boy; I will pay you for this;" and in a very few days respondent filed his complaint for divorce, alleging the adultery of his wife with Reagan for his cause. This conduct is corroborative of the claim that he hired Reagan to commit the crime of adultery, and that he was well satisfied with the rape instead, if it could be used to accomplish his main design, which was the putting away of his wife. By his presence and his silence, under the fact of his previous agreement with Reagan, he must be considered as having countenanced and encouraged the latter in the commission of the outrage upon his wife. He did this as effectually as if he had stood in the room, and said to Reagan, "Go ahead; you shall have the money the same whether it be by force or consent." If he had done this, there would have been no possible doubt of his guilt as a principal of the same crime as Reagan.

In this case the defendant and Reagan conspired to do an unlawful act; the one to commit a crime, and the other to pay him for it, to be present where he could witness its perpetration, and to use the crime to his advantage in getting rid of an undesired wife. If Chapman had conspired with Reagan to rob a person, Reagan to commit the crime, and Chapman to be present and share in the plunder, and in the act of robbery it became necessary, or Reagan supposed it did, to murder the person in order to accomplish the robbery, and Chapman had stood by, perfectly passive, but sharing in the spoils of the transaction, would he not have been guilty of the murder? Most assuredly he would. The malice and the assistance would be presumed. I cannot see any distinction between such a case and the one before us, except that the moral guilt in the case at bar far exceeds in turpitude that of the supposed one. A husband who could barter with another for the despoiling of his wife's virtue, and stand by to witness it with his brother, and remain passive and silent while such object was obtained by violence, and then use such permitted and encouraged rape to divorce her from him, and by this, and perjury added, publish her to the world as an adulteress, is morally guilty of as foul a crime as can be named in the calendar. The offense of Reagan, heinous as it is, sinks into insignificance beside it. To hold the respondent guiltless of rape would deprive him of the punishment he richly deserves, if the story of his wife can be believed. There is no adequate punishment for such a crime as his, unless he can be held as a principal with Reagan. And the law will support his conviction upon the facts which the jury must have found to be true.

It is said by the supreme court of Iowa in one of the cases cited in the brief of the counsel for respondent, (State v Farr, 33 Iowa, 561:) "If it had been preconcerted between A.J. Farr and the defendant to go to the mill for the purpose of drawing Graham, the deceased, into a quarrel, with a view of inflicting upon him some bodily injury, and the killing had resulted in pursuance of such plan, then the defendant would have been alike guilty with A.J., the perpetrator of the deed." On the trial of Charles, Lord Mohun, before the...