People v. Hunter, 127.

• Decision Date: 05 June 1922
• Docket Number: No. 127.,127.
• Parties: PEOPLE v. HUNTER.
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

218 Mich. 525
188 N.W. 346

PEOPLE
v.
HUNTER.

No. 127.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

June 5, 1922.

Exceptions from Circuit Court, Muskegon County; Vanderwerp, Judge.

Sanford Hunter was convicted of assault with intent to commit rape, and he brings exceptions. Reversed, and new trial ordered.

Argued before FELLOWS, C. J., and WIEST, McDONALD, CLARKE, BIRD, SHARPE, MOORE, and STEERE, JJ.

[188 N.W. 346]

Willard J. Turner, of Muskegon, for appellant.

Merlin Wiley, Atty. Gen., and Harry W. Jackson, Pros. Atty., and R. Glen Dunn, Asst. Pros. Atty., both of Muskegon, for the People.

BIRD, J.

Defendant was tried and convicted of the offense of assault with intent to commit rape on one Margaret Johnson, a young married woman, living in the township of Mooreland, Muskegon county.

The complaining witness testified that defendant called at her house, and found her husband away from home. They talked at the door a moment, when defendant asked to see her young baby. He went in grabbed her, and tried to kiss her, and later to have intercourse with her. Defendant concedes he was at the house, and that he made some advances which, as he thought, were apparently well received, but he insists that when she objected to his going farther that he desisted.

[1] 1. Mrs. Sarah Ardeline was sworn as a witness for the people. After testifying that she knew defendant and that he had dinner at her home on the day in question, the prosecutor asked her the following question:

‘Q. Was there anything occurred there at your house that day with reference to this daughter of yours?

‘Mr. Turner: Now, wait a minute.

‘A. I am not on Mr. Johnson's trial.

‘Q. I object to this as improper.

‘Mr. Jackson: If the court please, we are handicapped with the jury present.’

Whereupon the court excused the jury, and the matter was discussed by counsel. The jury was then called back, and the witness excused, and no comment was made by the court. It is urged that this was error, even though the question was left unanswered. We are inclined to agree with this contention. Keeping in mind that defendant was on trial for attempted rape, the question was a live wire which went directly to defendant's proneness is such affairs. The question was well calculated to, and probably did, leave in the minds of the jurors the impression that the prosecutor had knowledge that defendant had made an effort on the same day to fuss with or take advantage of her young daughter. Even though there was some basis for believing that defendant...