State v. Ginger
| Decision Date | 08 October 1890 |
| Citation | 46 N.W. 657,80 Iowa 574 |
| Parties | THE STATE v. GINGER |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
Decided October, 1890.
Appeal from O'Brien District Court.--HON. SCOTT M. LADD, Judge.
THIS is a proceeding by which it is sought to charge the defendant with being the father of a bastard child of one Emma Jetter. The defendant pleaded that he was not guilty of the charge. There was a trial by jury, and a verdict of guilty. The court ordered and adjudged that the defendant pay to the mother of the child the sum of seven hundred dollars; one hundred dollars to be paid in thirty days, and fifty dollars on the first day of January in each year, until the whole amount shall be paid. The defendant appeals.
AFFIRMED.
E. C Herrick and H. H. Crow, for appellant.
J. B Dunn, County Attorney, and J. L. E. Peck, for the State.
I.
The prosecutrix is a young girl, the daughter of a German farmer. She became pregnant when she was about nineteen years old. The defendant is a member of another German family of farmers in the same neighborhood. The two young people had been acquainted some four years. About May, 1887, the prosecutrix went to the house of the defendant and worked at housework for a week. She testified on the trial that during that time the defendant had sexual intercourse with her. The defendant was examined as a witness, and positively denied that he was guilty of the act charged. It is strenuously insisted that the verdict was without the support of evidence, and that it was the result of passion and prejudice on the part of the jury. If the jury believed the testimony of the complainant rather than that of the defendant, and there was no more reason for disbelieving one than the other, the verdict cannot be said to be contrary to the evidence; and it was the province of the jury to weigh the testimony of the witnesses, as well as all the facts and circumstances tending to corroborate or discredit them, and determine the case according to the preponderance of the evidence. State v. McGlothlen, 56 Iowa 544, 9 N.W. 893. It is true that the child was born before the usual period of gestation from the time fixed by the complainant in her testimony; but other evidence in the case shows that the matter of the exact time of gestation is not a controlling circumstance. And then again there is evidence which tends to show that the complainant may have had sexual intercourse with other men about the time the child was begotten. But this fact is not at all certain; and, if it be a fact, it was for the jury to determine who was the father of the child. State v. Pratt, 40 Iowa 631. We cannot disturb the verdict on the ground that it was not supported by the evidence.
II. The complainant stated in her testimony that a short time before the birth of the child she was thrown from a sleigh, and was injured by the fall, so that she "received a good many pains." The state called a physician as a witness. The object of calling the professional witness was to account for the apparent premature birth of the child. The witness was asked this question: "If a woman fall from a sleigh some three or four days prior to the birth of the child, and, from the effects of it, felt pain in the back and side, and had continued to have pains from that time, what effect would that be likely to have upon the birth, or would it have any effect, in your judgment?" This question was objected to on the grounds that it was "incompetent, immaterial and irrelevant, and the facts in the case not being ones in which the foundation of a hypothetical question is called for " The objection was overruled, and defendant accepted. It is claimed in the argument in behalf of appellant that there was no evidence in the case that the pains suffered by the complainant were "in the back and side," and that because there was no such evidence the judgment should be reversed. It is correct that hypothetical questions propounded to an expert should be founded upon evidence previously introduced; but in this case the want of such evidence does not appear from the record to have been presented as a specific objection. It is included in the general objection of incompetency and immateriality, but hypothetical questions are usually based upon a large number of facts, and it is hardly fair to make an objection in a general way without pointing out the particular part objected to. Besides, technical accuracy is not required in...
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