State v. Boyd
| Decision Date | 17 November 1903 |
| Citation | 76 S.W. 979,178 Mo. 2 |
| Parties | THE STATE v. BOYD, Appellant |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Appeal from St. Louis County Circuit Court. -- Hon. John W McElhinney, Judge.
Affirmed.
B. M Henderson and Lewis Jones for appellant.
Edward C. Crow, Attorney-General, and Bruce Barnett for the State.
(1) The first four grounds of the motion for new trial are that the verdict is against the law and the evidence. The testimony of the prosecuting witness makes out a clear and strong case of rape against the defendant. This is all that is necessary to sustain the verdict. State v. Marcks, 140 Mo. 656. (2) An exception was saved to the action of the court in permitting the State to show that the defendant had stated to the sheriff that he had pleaded guilty to a charge of rape and had served a term in the penitentiary therefor. The State proved this fact by proper and competent evidence, viz., the records of the court proceedings in that case, but the fact that this record evidence was necessary did not make it improper to admit oral testimony of this kind along the same line. State v. Miller, 100 Mo. 606; State v. Taylor, 118 Mo. 153. Such evidence was relevant under the indictment as affecting the amount of punishment to be assessed. R. S. 1899, sec. 2379. It was particularly proper for the purpose of identifying the defendant as the same Grant Boyd who was referred to in the court records, introduced in evidence. And as the defendant testified in his own behalf, it was relevant as tending to impeach his testimony. State v. Dyer, 139 Mo. 199. (3) Exceptions were saved to the court's action in permitting the State to show by defendant's witness, Hattie Buckner, that her child had been born out of wedlock. Such questions are proper on cross-examination. Muller v. St. Louis Hospital Ass'n, 5 Mo.App. 390; affirmed, 73 Mo. 242; Goins v. City of Moberly, 127 Mo. 116; Stephens' Dig. Law of Evid., 123. (4) Exceptions were saved to the court's action in permitting the State to ask Pearl B. Street on cross-examination if she had not heard of defendant's having been in the penitentiary on a case of ravish. The defense had asked this witness on direct examination as to defendant's reputation, and she had stated that it was good. It was proper, therefore, to ask this question on cross-examination. State v. McLaughlin, 149 Mo. 19; Martin v. Miller, 4 Mo. 47. However, the question was not answered. (5) The court was right in sustaining the State's objections to questions put to witnesses, Mrs. Annie Fox and Ida Hezelbach, by the defense, as to the defendant's reputation. Both of these witnesses stated that they did not know the defendant's reputation, and having thus disqualified themselves, the court properly refused to permit them to state whether defendant's reputation was good or bad. State v. Cox, 67 Mo. 392; State v. Brady, 87 Mo. 142; State v. Hains, 160 Mo. 555. (6) The defense sought to prove that defendant's sister and mother had warned him not to have any relations with Ida Andrews. The court was clearly right in excluding such evidence. (7) There was no impropriety in the prosecuting attorney's making the remark in his argument, "the defendant's name is written in the walls of the penitentiary." It was a fact which affected the credibility of the defendant's testimony. State v. Dyer, 139 Mo. 199; State v. Vandiver, 149 Mo. 502. The remark, therefore, amounted to nothing more than a comment upon the weight to be given to the defendant's testimony. If such remark was in any way improper, its prejudicial effect was counteracted by proper instructions given by the court, telling the jury what consideration they should give to the fact of defendant's plea of guilty and imprisonment upon the former charge. State v. Hack, 118 Mo. 92.
OPINION
The defendant, a negro, was convicted at the January term, 1903, of the circuit court of St. Louis county, upon a charge of rape upon the body of one Ida Andrews, and his punishment assessed at fifty years in the penitentiary.
The testimony of Ida Andrews, the prosecuting witness, was to the effect that on May 29, 1902, she was at work at the residence of one Mrs. Dawson in Webster Groves, in St. Louis county, and feeling sick at about a quarter to five o'clock in the afternoon, started for her home on Farm avenue in that town. Still feeling sick when she reached home, she seated herself upon her front porch and leaned her head upon her hand. On her way she had noticed Grant Boyd, the defendant, sitting on the steps at his mother's home on Shady avenue, it being the house just next to hers.
While the prosecuting witness was sitting in this posture, the defendant came up and asked her for a cool drink of water, and she told him that her husband had the key; that he was at the greenhouse and that, therefore, she could not get in to get the draw bucket. She then told the defendant to "go on home," and he obeyed, but returned about half an hour later, saying, "Mrs. Andrews, Mrs. Andrews, Mrs. Andrews, Hattie is sick and she says for you to come over there." Hattie was the defendant's sister.
Ida, who had dozed off to sleep in the interval between these two visits which the defendant paid her, aroused herself and told him that she was sick herself they came to the door, he gave her a push and come to the fence. The defendant insisted that she should go, saying that his mother was away at her work, and that Hattie was not able to come to the fence. Thinking that perhaps Hattie's condition was worse than her own the prosecuting witness yielded to these entreaties, and went with defendant, she walking ahead of him. When they came to the door, he gave her a push and commanded her to go in. Ida asked the meaning of this treatment, and the defendant replied that Hattie was not sitting there in the door, but was up stairs, and commanded her to go up. This she did and called several times for Hattie. Receiving no answer and perceiving that Hattie was not in the house, she returned to the lower floor and found that the defendant had locked the door. She placed her hand upon the doorknob to go, and the defendant told her she could not get out at that door, and with curses commanded her to take her hand off the knob. The prosecuting witness demanded to be let out, and the defendant renewed his curses and threatened to kill her if she did not take her hand off the doorknob. The defendant then cursed Ida and commanded her to lie down, and when she refused and demanded to be let out of the house, he seized his gun and said, "God damn you, lie down here, if you don't I will kill you," and seizing her by the shoulder threw her down and jumped upon her with his knee, and cursing still, commanded her to "open up." She screamed, but he seized her by the throat and forced her to silence. He then forced himself between her legs and accomplished his purpose, keeping his victim down six or seven minutes, having intercourse with her, penetrating her private parts with his own, and making an emission or discharge.
The prosecuting witness offered such resistance as she could, but was overpowered and outmanaged, as she testified; she also threatened to tell Will (her husband), but the defendant said, "Damn Will," and commanded her to lie still, and threatened to kill her. During all this time the defendant had a gun lying at his side, but the prosecuting witness testified that she was "so scared and outdone" that she didn't think of the weapon.
After this the defendant told Ida that he would kill her if she ever told anyone what had happened. He then released her from the house through the kitchen door, and she started home, but fell near the gate and lay for a length of time, which seemed to her to be about ten minutes. Upon coming to her senses, she went to the house of Mrs. Martha Stone, where, besides Mrs. Stone, she saw Josephine Stone, Victoria Robinson, Mollie Thurman and Fannie Thomas, this last-named person being the defendant's sister. She told these parties that she had been assaulted and raped by Grant Boyd, the defendant. She also told one Mrs. Laumand, as well as Frank Elazer, a man who had been working that day at the house where she too had been employed. She sought physicians and had her body examined, and about seven o'clock met her husband and told him what had occurred. She also reported the matter promptly to the town marshal and to a justice of the peace. All of these parties were introduced as witnesses by the State, and testified that immediately after the time of the occurrence, she told them that she had been raped by Grant Boyd, and several stated that she was crying as she told it, and her appearance was that of fright and agitation.
Bennie Elazer, a boy eleven years of age, testified that at the time of the occurrence he was at play about a block and a half away, and saw the defendant standing at the fence talking to Ida Andrews; saw them going to the house of defendant's mother, Ida walking ahead of the defendant, and saw her running back a few minutes later, the direction from which she came indicating that she had come out at the kitchen door.
Dr. Marshall Baker, a physician, examined the prosecuting witness soon after the affair, and found a redness about the lower part of her abdomen and above the thighs, and found her complaining of sore places upon her body.
Soon after five o'clock that evening, Mollie Thurman saw defendant board a street car for the city of St. Louis, and about seven o'clock Louis Thurman saw him seven miles from Webster Groves, walking north. After the town marshal was notified of the rumored rape, a search was made for the defendant and he was found at the house of his sister in the city of St....
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