State v. Hayden

• Decision Date: 09 November 1897
• Citation: 42 S.W. 826,141 Mo. 311
• Parties: STATE v. HAYDEN.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

42 S.W. 826

141 Mo. 311

STATE v. HAYDEN.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 2.

November 9, 1897.

ASSAULT WITH INTENT TO RAPE.

A conviction for assault with intent to commit rape cannot be sustained when it appears that defendant, on being told that, if he attempted to come into the room, his head would be cut open with an ax, left the premises, and did not return.

Appeal from criminal court, Lafayette county; John E. Ryland, Judge.

William Hayden was convicted of an assault with intent to commit rape, and appeals. Reversed.

John Welborn and John S. Blackwell & Son, for appellant. The Attorney General and Sam B. Jeffries, for the State.

BURGESS, J.

At the October term, 1896, of the criminal court of Lafayette county, the defendant, a negro, was indicted by the grand jury of said county, and charged with two separate and distinct offenses, in two separate counts. In the first count in the indictment he was charged with feloniously assaulting one Jennie Vaughan, with intent to ravish and carnally know her, and the second count charged him with attempting to break into the dwelling house of said Jennie Vaughan, with the intent to steal, etc. The offenses were alleged to have been committed at said county on the night of the 22d day of March, 1896. At the June term, 1897, of said court, on motion of defendant, the court required the state to elect upon which count it would proceed to trial; and, it having elected to proceed on the first count, defendant was put upon his trial, convicted of assault with intent to commit rape, and his punishment fixed at two years' imprisonment in the penitentiary. After unsuccessful motions for new trial and in arrest, he appeals.

At the time of the commission of the alleged offense, Jennie Vaughan lived with her father in the town of Dover, in Lafayette county. On that night, she, Miss Ada Hodges, Mrs. Liggon, and Florence Beattie, a little girl, were at the home of Jennie Vaughan. They all retired quite early, and went to sleep. Some time between 9 and 10 o'clock, Jennie Vaughan was awakened by a noise at the west window of her room, when she arose from her bed, and called to Miss Hodges to get up. Miss Vaughan lighted a lamp, went to the window, and found that the upper pane in the lower sash in the window had been cut out, and the stick that had been used to hold the window down had been removed. As soon as Miss Vaughan got to the window, and about the time she discovered that the glass was out and the stick gone, she also discovered that there was a person on the outside of the house, and close to the window. Miss Hodges then came to the window, and while she and Miss Vaughan were there together the window was raised, or attempted to be raised, several times by the person on the outside. Miss Vaughan put the poker over the window, to prevent it from being raised; and, while she was trying to hold the window down, the person on the outside ran his hand through the hole from which the glass had been cut, and tried to catch her dress. She and Miss Hodges put a...