State v. Knoch

• Decision Date: 02 March 1929
• Docket Number: No. 29444.,29444.
• Citation: 14 S.W.2d 424
• Parties: STATE v. KNOCH.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

14 S.W.2d 424

STATE v. KNOCH.

No. 29444.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 2.

March 2, 1929.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Benton County; C. A. Calvird, Judge.

Hammond Knoch was convicted of an assault with intent to rape, and he appeals. Affirmed.

Stratton Shartel, Atty. Gen., and A. B. Lovan, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

HENWOOD, C.

This case is here on an appeal from the circuit court of Benton county, where the defendant was convicted of an assault with intent to commit rape and sentenced to imprisonment in the penitentiary for two years.

According to the testimony of the prosecutrix, Mrs. Della Roberts, she was 20 years of age at the time of the trial, in October, 1927, and had been married about five years. She had lived practically all of her life about one mile and a half east of the town of Duroc, in Benton county. On August 30, 1927, she walked to Duroc, bought some groceries, and started back to her home. On the way, she stopped at the home of the defendant "to see Alfie," defendant's wife, who was her cousin. "There wasn't anybody there but Hammond Knoch" (the defendant). The defendant asked her to come into the house, and she declined. He grabbed her and "drug" her into the house and shut the door. All of the doors and windows of the house were closed. He asked her "if he might." She emphatically refused to agree to his proposal, saying: "I wasn't raised that way; I have got a man and got little children; I don't believe in such." He grabbed her again "and says, `Just as well finish it while I have got you.'" She tried to get out of the house, and he threw her down on the floor and tried to have sexual intercourse with her. While he was "on his hands and knees," she "kicked him over backwards." He grabbed her again, "and says, `If you won't tell this, I will let you alone.'" She told him she would not tell anybody, and he let her go, but, as she ran out of the house, she said: "I will tell it just as quick as I get home." While in the "scuffle" with the defendant, she was "holloaing," fighting, and trying to get away. After leaving the defendant's home, she stopped at the home of her husband's mother and "got a drink," and then went "right straight" to her own home. She found Bruce McDowell there, visiting with her husband, but as soon as he left, she "told" her husband.

Charlie Roberts, her husband, testified that, immediately after Bruce McDowell left their home, she told him "that the defendant had made an assault on her," and that "she was awful sore," though he did not notice "any bruises or marks on her."

Mrs. Mary E. Roberts, mother of Charlie Roberts, testified that the prosecutrix stopped at her house on the day in question, and that she "looked like she was scared; something the matter"; and that she said she was "in a hurry to get to her baby."

The defendant offered no evidence in his own behalf.

I. The defendant contends that the evidence is insufficient to sustain the verdict. Manifestly, this contention is based upon a misconception of the constitutive elements of the offense charged. This court, in a long and unbroken line of decisions, has held that if the intent, with the present means of carrying it into effect, exists, and preparations therefor have been made, the assault is complete. State v. Montgomery, 63 Mo. 296; State v. Eddings, 71 Mo. 545, 36 Am. Rep. 496; State v. Smith, 80 Mo. 516; State v. Shroyer, 104 Mo. 441, 16 S. W. 286, 24 Am. St. Rep. 344; State v. Dalton, 106 Mo. 463, 17 S. W. 700; State v. Alcorn, 137 Mo. 121, 38 S. W. 548; State v. Hoag, 232 Mo. 308, 134 S. W. 509; State v. Bowers, 239 Mo. 431, 144 S. W. 97; State v. Pierce, 243 Mo. 524, 147 S. W. 970; State v. Comer, 296 Mo. 1, 247 S. W. 179; State v. Pinkard (Mo. Sup.) 300 S. W. 748. Applying this rule, the finding of the jury in this case is amply supported by undisputed facts. The testimony of the prosecutrix shows that the defendant not only declared his purpose and intention of having sexual intercourse with her, but undertook to accomplish such purpose and intention by force and violence. The fact that she kicked him and successfully resisted his attack does not purge him of the crime which he intended to commit when he began the assault. State v. Pinkard, supra, loc. cit. 751 of 300 S. W. It follows...