State v. Bauerkemper
| Decision Date | 10 October 1895 |
| Citation | 95 Iowa 562,64 N.W. 609 |
| Parties | STATE v. BAUERKEMPER. |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from district court, Pottawattamie county; A. B. Thornell, Judge.
The defendant was indicted, tried, and convicted of the crime of having seduced one Annie Demitz, an unmarried woman of previous chaste character. Judgment of imprisonment in the penitentiary at Ft. Madison for a period of 14 months was pronounced against the defendant, from which he appeals. Affirmed.Mayne & Hazelton, for appellant.
John Y. Stone, Atty. Gen., and W. A. Mynster, for the State.
Appellant's first contention is that the court erred in overruling his objection to questions put by the state to the prosecuting witness, “as leading and suggestive.” It is clear from the face of this record that in the examination in chief of the prosecutrix the questions were very generally leading and suggestive, and the court seems to have so regarded them. At one time, in overruling the objection, the court said, “It appears difficult to induce the witness to tell the story of her own accord, and this objection is overruled.” In another instance the court said: We conclude from the record before us that there was no abuse of the discretion resting in the court, in permitting the course of examination pursued in this instance.
2. The court, in instructing as to the elements of the crime charged in the second paragraph of the instructions, omitted to state that the prosecutrix must have been of previous chaste character. In the subsequent paragraph of the charge the matter of chastity was submitted as an inquiry for the jury. It was instructed that chastity was the general rule, and the want of it the exception, and that the law presumes the woman to be chaste until the contrary is shown, and that, in the absence of evidence attacking the character of the prosecuting witness in that respect, the state is not called upon to offer evidence in support of her character for chastity. This statement of the law is not questioned, but it is argued that, as the defendant testified to having had sexual intercourse with the prosecutrix one week prior to the date testified to by her, at the latter date she was not of chaste character. It was immaterial upon which date the seduction was consummated, and this statement of the defendant did not, under the law, make it incumbent on the state to offer evidence of chastity.
3. Defendant contends, on authority of Andre v. State, 5 Iowa, 389, that the...
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... ... weakness of intellect precludes their testifying in the ... ordinary way. (People v. Bowers (Cal.), 18 P. 660; ... 50 Century Digest, "Witnesses," sec. 854, citing ... Huffman v. Cauble, 86 Ind. 591; Brassell v ... State, 91 Ala. 45, 8 So. 679; State v ... Bauerkemper, 95 Iowa 562, 64 N.W. 609; Ellis v ... State, 25 Fla. 702, 6 So. 768; McLean v. City of ... Lewiston, 8 Idaho 472, 69 P. 478; Armstead v ... State, 22 Tex. App. 51, 2 S.W. 627; Ham v. State ... (Tex. Cr. App.), 78 S.W. 929; Welsh v. State, ... 60 Neb. 101, 82 N.W. 368; State v. Burns, 119 ... ...
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State v. Holter
...seduction. Whar. Cr. Ev. (9th Ed.) § 329. It is true that the Supreme Court of Iowa under a statute similar to ours, in State v. Bauerkemper, 95 Iowa 562, 64 N.W. 609, approved an instruction to the jury "Chastity was the general rule, and the want of it the exception, and the law presumes ......
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