Richardson v. State

• Decision Date: 20 November 1911
• Citation: 56 So. 454,100 Miss. 514
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: ED. RICHARDSON v. STATE

56 So. 454

100 Miss. 514

ED. RICHARDSON v. STATE

Supreme Court of Mississippi

November 20, 1911

October 1911

APPEAL from the circuit court of Yazoo county, HON. W. A. HENRY Judge.

Ed Richardson was convicted of rape and appeals.

The facts are fully stated in the opinion of the court.

Reversed and remanded.

Holmes & Holmes, for appellant.

The case should be reversed also because the court refused to let the defendant show the prosecutrix was previously of unchaste character, and had had sexual intercourse with other men many times before. Let us say here that we did not urge the girl's consent as any defense, for she was under age, and any criminal knowledge of her with her consent even, would have been no defense. But the court understood that the object of this testimony was to show the improbability of the girl's story and to rebut certain facts brought out by the witness, Lizzie Williams. The defendant denies entirely the sexual intercourse, and offered this testimony for an entirely different purpose, viz.: The mother had testified to blood spots on Rosena's underclothes, and corroborated her story as to the rape. Now if the prosecutrix has previously repeatedly had sexual intercourse with other parties, she would have had no hymen, and certainly would not have bled from a rupture of the hymen, which was the only possible source of the blood spots, for the mother admitted there was no bruises and no lacerations, therefore her previous unchaste character would have knocked out the mother's testimony of the blood spots, and contradicted her in a very material matter. Further, the girl swore that she was forcibly ravished, and this testimony would have tended to dispute her on that point by showing no necessity and no motive for forcibly ravishing her, as she would have consented, and would have tended to break down in part her story, giving the jury an opportunity to apply the principle, "falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus."

Jas. R. McDowell, assistant attorney-general, for appellee.

The error set up is that the court should have permitted proof of the previous unchaste character of the little girl. It is well established that this cannot be done. A common prostitute can be raped if done against her will. It is rape to have intercourse with a child under twelve years of age and even with her consent. The fact that others have done so is no defense. Counsel says that the court ought to...