State v. Cardwell
| Decision Date | 11 October 1913 |
| Docket Number | 18,666 |
| Parties | THE STATE OF KANSAS, Appellee, v. ROBERT CARDWELL, Appellant |
| Court | Kansas Supreme Court |
Decided July, 1913.
Appeal from Stafford district court; DANIEL A. BANTA, judge.
Judgment affirmed.
SYLLABUS BY THE COURT.
1. STATUTORY RAPE--Corpus Delicti May be Proven by Circumstantial Evidence. On the trial of a criminal action the corpus delicti--that some one has committed the crime charged--may be proven in whole or in part by circumstantial evidence the same as any other fact in controversy; the rule being that the best evidence which, in the nature of the case, is attainable should be produced, and it must be so conclusive as to exclude all reasonable doubt, to sustain a conviction.
2. NEW TRIAL -- Newly Discovered Evidence -- No Diligence Shown. A motion for a new trial on the ground of newly discovered evidence, where the affidavits disclose that the defendant knew before the trial the facts proposed to be proven, and having testified on the trial he made no mention of such facts nor made any effort to secure the attendance of the proposed witnesses, is properly overruled.
Paul R Nagle, of Saint John, for the appellant.
John S. Dawson, attorney-general, Robert Garvin, county attorney, and Ray H. Beals, of Saint John, for the appellee.
The appellant was tried, convicted and sentenced for the crime of rape charged to have been committed upon his own daughter, a female under the age of eighteen years. The case presents a sad chapter in the study of criminology. The prosecuting witness, according to her testimony on the trial, swore to a complaint against her father, the appellant, before a justice of the peace and in the presence of the county attorney, the sheriff of the county and the mayor of the city, charging appellant with repeated acts of sexual intercourse with herself, specifying four separate dates, prior to her eighteenth birthday. On the trial she testified that the appellant never had carnal intercourse with her, and that the reason for making the complaint was that she wanted to run away from home because her father would not allow her to run on the streets at night with the boys; also that the justice of the peace threatened to have her sent to Beloit (probably meaning the industrial school at Beloit, Kan). She previously signed a written statement before the county attorney, which she testified she read before signing it. In this she made the same charges against the appellant. The appellant's son, Carl, being called as a witness, testified that he had made a statement to the county attorney that he had seen his father and sister in bed together having criminal intercourse, and that his mother caught them and ordered appellant to go outdoors; that a rumpus occurred, and his father got out and struck his mother, and he, Carl, went to a Mr. Turtle's to have him come over. On the trial Carl further testified that at the time referred to in his statement to the county attorney nothing occurred between his father and sister; that he did not see them in bed together and that he, the witness, did not go over to Mr. Tuttle's; also that he made the several statements to the county attorney, but that the county attorney scared him into it; that he had never seen the act.
There was also evidence that the appellant, after being arrested and before making the sworn statement to the county attorney told the sheriff, jailer and others that he was guilty and would plead guilty; that to one witness he boasted of the act with his daughter on her sixteenth birthday, the date of the charge of which he was convicted; also that he went to the county attorney's office with the sheriff, and there, in the presence of the sheriff, county attorney, a notary public, his wife, mother...
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