State v. Carpenter

• Citation: 73 P. 357,32 Wash. 254
• Parties: STATE v. CARPENTER.
• Decision Date: 15 July 1903
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Washington

73 P. 357

32 Wash. 254

STATE v. CARPENTER.

Supreme Court of Washington

July 15, 1903

Appeal from Superior Court, Lewis County; A. E. Rice, Judge.

George D. Carpenter was convicted of crime, and appeals. Reversed.

Frank Burch, for appellant.

Maurice A. Langhorne, for the State.

FULLERTON C.J.

The appellant was informed against for the crime of rape, alleged to have been committed upon the person of one Georgie Carpenter, his daughter, a female child under the age of 18 years. He was found guilty on a trial had thereon, and appeals from the judgment of conviction and the sentence pronounced against him.

It is first assigned that the court erred in permitting W. A Westover and J. C. Matson, witnesses for the state, to testify to certain statements, in the nature of admissions made by the appellant at his preliminary examination. It is not contended that there was anything in the statements themselves that rendered them inadmissible, but it is said that the state did not first show that the admissions were not made under the influence of fear produced by threats. But we think the appellant has mistaken the effect of the record. While it is true that the witnesses did not use the words of the statute in detailing the circumstances under which the admissions were made (that is, they did not say, in words, that the admissions were not 'made under the influence of fear produced by threats'), yet they did so in effect. They testified that the admissions were made at the close of the state's case before the committing magistrate, when the magistrate inquired of the appellant whether or not he had any witnesses or testimony to offer on his own behalf. Clearly, there was here evidence that the admissions were not made under the influence of fear produced by threats, even if it be conceded that the statute requires such a showing to be made before an admission made by a defendant at a preliminary hearing can be introduced in evidence against him--a question we do not decide.

In this same connection, and for the same reason, it is assigned that the court erred in permitting the jailer to testify to other admissions made by the appellant. This assignment seems to us to be equally without merit. The jailer testified that no inducements were held out to the appellant in order to get him to make the statements he did make, and that they were made in the presence of the appellant's wife at a time when she was visiting him in the jail. Surely there was here a showing that the admissions were not made under the influence of fear produced by threats.

On the trial, while the wife of the appellant was on the stand testifying on his behalf, she was asked on her examination in chief concerning the conduct of the appellant towards the members of his family generally, and answered to the effect that he had always conducted himself towards his family as a good husband and father should. On cross-examination she was asked if it was not a fact that their daughter Annie had told her that the appellant had attempted to commit the crime of rape upon her (Annie), to which she replied that Annie had never told her anything of the kind. In rebuttal the state put Annie on the stand, and...