State v. Haugh

• Decision Date: 15 October 1912
• Citation: 156 Iowa 639,137 N.W. 917
• Parties: STATE v. HAUGH.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

156 Iowa 639

137 N.W. 917

STATE

v.HAUGH.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Oct. 15, 1912.

Appeal from District Court, Jasper County; K. E. Wilcockson, Judge.

Prosecution for rape. Defendant was found guilty of an assault with intent to commit rape, and appeals. Affirmed.E. J. Salmon and E. M. S. McLaughlin, both of Newton, for appellant.

George Cosson, Atty. Gen., and John Fletcher, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

McCLAIN, C. J.

The defendant, under 16 years of age, was found guilty of the crime of assault with intent to commit rape on the prosecuting witness, who, at the time of the alleged assault, was 12 years of age.

[1] 1. The contention for appellant is that the verdict is without support in the evidence, predicated upon the claim that under the record the defendant, if guilty in any degree, was guilty of rape, and, as the jury found him guilty only of an assault with intent to commit rape, there was such inconsistency between the evidence and the verdict as to require a reversal. But this contention is not sound. The court instructed the jury that they might consider whether the defendant was guilty of an assault with intent to commit rape, if they found that rape had not been committed, fully instructing as to the included crime. As the evidence tended to show guilt of the crime with intent to commit rape, the verdict was not without support in the evidence, nor was it unauthorized by the instructions. The error, if any, committed in this respect was in so instructing the jury that there might be a conviction of an assault with intent to commit rape, although the evidence showed that, if any crime whatever was committed, it amounted to the crime of rape, as charged. It may be that if the court had failed to instruct with reference to an assault with intent to commit rape, and the defendant had been convicted of the crime of rape, we would have been justified in saying that there was no error for the reason the jury could not under the evidence have properly returned a verdict of an assault with intent to commit rape. But the converse is not necessarily true. We have never held that it constitutes prejudicial error to instruct with reference to an included crime, even though under the evidence a conviction for the crime charged, without an instruction as to the included crime, would have been sustained. It does not lie in the mouth of the defendant to complain that he has been convicted of a lower degree of crime than that which the evidence tends to establish. It is not to be presumed from the fact that the jury failed to convict of rape that they did convict of an assault with intent to commit rape without finding from the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was guilty of that crime. If the jury exercised undue leniency in their finding as to the degree of the crime committed, such error has resulted to defendant's benefit, and he cannot complain. It is enough to say that, so far as the general sufficiency of the evidence is concerned, the verdict is not without ample...