State v. Clarke

• Decision Date: 21 June 1886
• Parties: THE STATE v. CLARK
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

28 N.W. 606

69 Iowa 294

THE STATE v. CLARK

Supreme Court of Iowa, Des Moines

June 21, 1886

Appeal from Henry District Court.

THE defendant was indicted for the crime of rape. He was tried by jury, and convicted of an assault with intent to commit a rape. He appeals.

REVERSED.

L. G. & L. A. Palmer, for appellant.

A. J Baker, Attorney-general, for the State.

OPINION

ROTHROCK, J.

It appears from the evidence that the defendant was at New London, in Henry county, on the afternoon of the twenty-fifth day of August, 1884, with a lumber wagon and two horses. He left that place in the evening of that day, and, at his solicitation, Margart Gallagher, a girl aged fourteen years accompanied him, riding in his wagon to his home at Mount Pleasant, a distance of nine or ten miles. He and the girl did not arrive at Mount Pleasant until the next morning. She testified, as a witness upon the trial, that while on the journey the defendant drove his wagon off the road into a field, and turned his horses out to graze, and remained there all night, and that during the night the defendant frequently attempted to have sexual intercourse with her forcibly and against her will. She remained at the home of defendant all of the next day, and returned to her home late in the evening. The alleged offense was committed on Monday night. The mother of the prosecutrix was at that time absent at Council Bluffs. Some three days thereafter the girl wrote a letter to her mother, in which she not only made complaint of having been assaulted by the defendant, but detailed all of the particulars attending the same in about the same manner in substance, as she stated the same as a witness on the trial. Her mother received the letter on Friday night, and she arrived at home on Saturday. Upon her return her daughter detailed to her all the alleged facts attendant upon the outrage upon her. The mother was sworn and examined as a witness upon the trial of the case, and she was permitted, over the defendant's objection, to detail to the jury all of the facts communicated to her by her daughter on Saturday, and said letter was introduced in evidence and read to the jury.

Counsel for the defendant claim that all of said evidence was inadmissible, and that it was improperly and erroneously admitted, and we think their position in reference thereto is correct. In 3 Greenl. Ev., § 213 it is said: "Though the prosecutrix may be asked...