State v. Buxton

• Decision Date: 16 January 1894
• Citation: 57 N.W. 417,89 Iowa 573
• Parties: THE STATE OF IOWA, Appellee, v. C. A. BUXTON, Appellant
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

57 N.W. 417

89 Iowa 573

THE STATE OF IOWA, Appellee, v. C. A. BUXTON, Appellant

Supreme Court of Iowa, Des Moines

January 16, 1894

Appeal from Jones District Court.--HON. J. D. GIFFEN, Judge.

THE defendant was indicted, tried, and convicted of the crime of seduction, and judgment entered against him, from which he appeals.

Reversed.

Welch & Welch, for appellant.

John Y Stone, Attorney General, and Thomas A. Cheshire for the state.

OPINION

GIVEN, J.

I.

In impaneling the jury, one Young was called as talesman, and after examination, was passed for cause. Afterward, and after another juror had been examined and passed for cause, and another peremptory challenge made, the defendant asked leave to further examine Mr. Young for cause, to show that he had served in that court as talesman within one year, counsel stating that that "fact was overlooked in the examination for cause." The court refused the leave asked, and thereupon the defendant challenged Mr. Young peremptorily, and thereafter exercised his only remaining peremptory challenge. The appellant assigns this refusal as error. It is conceded that it was within the discretion of the court whether to grant the leave asked. There is nothing appearing to show an abuse of that discretion, therefore the judgment can not be disturbed on this ground.

The appellant complains of certain rulings of the court sustaining objections to questions put by him to the witnesses. They are not questions that will necessarily arise upon a retrial, and, as we conclude that the case must be reversed, it is unnecessary that we consider those questions.

In the eighth paragraph of the charge, the court after instructing that the prosecutrix was presumed to have had a previously chaste character, and that the burden was on the defendant to overcome this presumption, instructed as follows: "In this case there has been evidence offered tending to show that the prosecutrix, sometime prior to the time of the alleged seduction, had sexual intercourse with one Lee Wilbur; and, if you believe this, then she would be of unchaste character at the time of the alleged seduction by defendant, unless she had reformed, and then he could not be convicted." No evidence whatever was offered by the state with a view to establish reformation. The prosecution was upon the basis that the prosecutrix had always been of chaste character up to the time of the alleged seduction. ...