State v. Bragdon
| Decision Date | 27 April 1917 |
| Docket Number | 20,226 - (20) |
| Citation | 162 N.W. 465,136 Minn. 348 |
| Parties | STATE v. JOSEPH W. BRAGDON |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Defendant was indicted by the grand jury, tried in the district court for Hennepin county before Fish, J., and a jury, and convicted of the crime of carnal knowledge of a female child of the age of 14 years. From an order denying his motion for a new trial, defendant appealed. Affirmed.
Abuse of child -- verdict sustained.
1. Evidence considered and held sufficient to justify the verdict of the jury.
Examination of juror during recess of court -- absence of defendant.
2. After the trial was under way, the trial judge, during a recess of the court and in the presence of counsel for both the defendant and the state, called two of the jurors into his chambers, one at a time, and inquired of them concerning their having been tampered with. Error is now claimed from the fact that the defendant was not present at this inquiry. The incident was no part of the trial, and no challenge having been taken to either juror and no objection having been made on account of the absence of the defendant, it is held, that the defendant is in no position to complain, nor were his rights, in any manner, prejudiced.
Criminal law -- conduct of prosecutor.
3. Statements of the prosecuting attorneys made during the trial and upon the argument to the jury considered and held not to have prejudiced the rights of the defendant.
Refusal of court to read statute to jury.
4. Where the evidence is conflicting as to whether the alleged offense was committed within the county named in the indictment, it was not error, under the evidence in this case, for the court to refuse to read to the jury the statute fixing the boundary line of the county.
Assignment of error.
5. Assignments of error challenging the fairness of the trial held not sustained by the record.
Charles B. Elliott and Thomas W. Beare, for appellant.
Lyndon A. Smith, Attorney General, John M. Rees, County Attorney, George W. Armstrong and Walter H. Newton, Assistant County Attorneys, for respondent.
Defendant was indicted, tried and found guilty of the charge of carnally knowing and abusing a female child of the age of 14 years. He appealed from an order denying a new trial.
The appeal brings the cause to this court upon a full and complete record of the proceedings and evidence had and taken below, and the errors complained of are embraced under some 50 odd assignments by which the rulings of the trial court, the sufficiency of the evidence, the conduct of the trial by the prosecuting attorneys are challenged as erroneous, prejudicial and of a character not only to justify but require a new trial in the interests of justice. We have given all these matters careful consideration and are unable to concur in this contention.
In reaching this conclusion we have not overlooked any of defendant's assignments of error, but have given each the special consideration the importance thereof has seemed to demand. While there are a great number of alleged errors, the princiopl point narrows down to the claims: (1) That the verdict is not sustained by sufficient competent evidence; (2) that the witnesses produced by the state, and upon whom reliance necessarily was had to establish the guilt of defendant, were wholly unworthy of belief, and that the act charged against the defendant, in the manner testified to by the witnesses to have been committed, was impossible of accomplishment; and (3) that by reason of the misconduct of the prosecuting attorneys, the prejudicial rulings and remarks of the trial court, the conduct of the bystanders in the court room during the trial, applauding certain of the acts and remarks of the prosecuting attorneys, the agitated state of the public press and public mind which permeated the jury box, defendant was not given that fair and impartial trial he was entitled to under the Constitution and laws of the state.
Though the case is of more than passing importance, the questions presented do not require extended discussion. The first two, namely, the credibility of the witnesses produced by the state and the sufficiency of the evidence, may be disposed of together, as they relate to one distinct branch of the case.
1. The crime was alleged to have been committed on or about June 1, 1913. The indictment was not found by the grand jury until March, 1916, nearly three years after the date on which the crime is charged to have been committed.
2. The prosecutrix, for she may be so termed though she did not, by complaint, initiate the prosecution, was then in the neighborhood of 14 years of age. She had as companions two girls of about the same age. One of these joined with the prosecutrix and gave evidence tending to convict defendant of the charge. They were, in certain respects, corroborated by another state witness, a married woman who testified to acts of undue familiarity by defendant with the girls at her home. Her character was vigorously assailed and, in one respect at least, shown to be not of a high order. The two girls mentioned gave direct and positive evidence of the commission of the crime, and, if their testimony is worthy of belief this evidence was amply sufficient to support the verdict. Their credibility is challenged with much earnestness by counsel for defendant. It is a fact that the girls were of the street, if not thoroughly hardened at the time, were leading a life that tended to and subsequently did bring them to public attention, and they were apprehended by process from the juvenile court and committed to the state institution for the reformation of their kind. There is no claim that defendant had led them astray or was the cause of their downfall, though it is claimed that, by his conduct toward them, he aided in the accomplishment of that end. They were in the state school at the time of the trial, and an effort was made to show that their evidence was influenced by those in charge of the institution, and others, worthy women of Minneapolis, who were active in support of the state's side of the case. It was further claimed that the...
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