State v. Lahmon

• Decision Date: 10 December 1940
• Docket Number: 45232.
• Citation: 295 N.W. 148,229 Iowa 871
• Parties: STATE v. LAHMON.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

295 N.W. 148

229 Iowa 871

STATE v. LAHMON.

No. 45232.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

December 10, 1940

Appeal from District Court, Polk County; Loy Ladd, Judge.

Defendant was indicted for the crime of rape and entered a plea of not guilty. The trial resulted in a verdict of guilty and sentence accordingly. Defendant appeals.

Reversed.

Carl E. Patterson, of Des Moines, for appellant.

John M. Rankin, Atty. Gen., Jens Grothe, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Francis J. Kuble, Co. Atty., of Des Moines, for appellee.

MILLER, Justice.

The only witness who undertakes to testify of her own knowledge to the fact that a crime was committed by defendant is the prosecutrix. She testified to all the necessary details. Her testimony was sufficient to sustain a verdict of guilty, if the requirement of Section 13900 of the Code 1935 that her testimony be corroborated " by other evidence tending to connect the defendant with the commission of the offense" was met. State v. Strable, 228 Iowa __, 293 N.W. 441; State v. Banks, 227 Iowa 1208, 290 N.W. 534; State v. Grimm, 212 Iowa 1193, 1195, 237 N.W. 451, 452, and cases cited therein. Appellant's first assignment of error challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to meet such requirement. This is the only assignment of error which we need consider. We hold that it is well grounded.

Prosecutrix testified that she was waiting for a street car at the northeast corner of Seventh and Walnut Street at about 11:30 p. m. While defendant challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to designate the town, we are satisfied that the evidence was sufficient to identify it as the City of Des Moines. Prosecutrix testified that the defendant, who was unknown to her, drove up in front of her and requested her to ride with him; she refused and defendant threatened her believing he had a gun and because of fear of his threats she got into his car and rode with him to her home on Ingersoll Avenue, where he refused to let her out and resisted her attempts to leave the car; he forcibly transported her to a point on 63d Street, south of University Avenue, where the car ran off the side of the graveled road into the ditch; at this place the assault was committed upon her; following the commission of the crime, she and defendant got out of the car and walked down the road to secure help to remove the car from the ditch, proceeding until they reached 63d Street and Grand Avenue, where they stopped a car being driven by two students of Still College.

The testimony of these two young men is relied upon for corroboration of prosecutrix. They testified that, when their car was stopped, prosecutrix was crying, was rather hysterical, stated that defendant had kidnapped her, beaten her up and had " made her" . They took her home but neither one of them testified to any statement of prosecutrix when they reached her home.

The sheriff of Polk County testified that complaint was made to him that night or early the next morning. He proceeded to 63d Street north of Grand Avenue with two of his deputies, where they found defendant with his car in the ditch. They arrested him and took him to jail. They found a pair of lady's gloves and a hair ribbon in the car. Defendant said he would rather talk to his attorney and made no statement to the sheriff or his deputies.

Dr Kloksien examined the prosecutrix the following day, found a superficial abrasion on the left side of her face and on the left side of her pelvis. He found the hymenal ring had been broken and was healed. There was no evidence of any trauma through the vagina, no lacerations or discolored areas or any swelling. The cervix had several erosions.

Defendant denied prosecutrix's version of the affair, testifying that she voluntarily entered his car and joined in a petting party. We are not concerned with this conflict in the testimony, but solely with the sufficiency of the evidence offered to corroborate prosecutrix. We hold that it did not meet the requirements of Section 13900.

This court has repeatedly held that the mere fact that there is evidence establishing the fact that the defendant had an opportunity to commit the offense does not meet the requirement for corroboration. State v. Ashurst, 210 Iowa 719, 231 N.W. 319; State v. Brundidge, 204 Iowa 111, 214 N.W. 569; State v. Hatcher, 201 Iowa 936, 208 N.W. 307; State v. John, 188 Iowa 494, 176 N.W. 280; State v. Sells, 145 Iowa 675, 124 N.W. 776; State v. Egbert, 125 Iowa 443, 101 N.W. 191; State v. Chapman, 88 Iowa 254, 55 N.W. 489.In addition to testimony of others, showing that defendant was present at the place where the crime is asserted to have been committed and therefore had an opportunity to commit it, there is also evidence of declarations made by the prosecutrix which point to the defendant as the guilty party. However, we have repeatedly held that evidence of opportunity accompanied by testimony of declarations of the prosecutrix are not sufficient to constitute the necessary corroboration. State v. John, supra; State v. Powers, 181 Iowa 452, 465, 164 N.W. 856; State v. Egbert, supra.

It is true that in State v. Peterson, 110 Iowa 647, 649, 82 N.W. 329, this court states: " The state was permitted to show that on the next morning the prosecutrix made complaint to the people for whom she was working, and to her father, of the assault made upon her by the defendant the previous evening. Defendant claims that this complaint was too far removed in time from the principal occurrence to be received as evidence. If such testimony were admissible solely because part of the res gestæ, this contention would be of much merit. Such complaint, however, is admissible, not solely because it is part of the res gestæ, but because it is a fact tending to corroborate the evidence of the prosecutrix. State v. Richards, 33 Iowa 420; 3 Greenl. Ev. § 213; McClain, Cr. Law, § 455."

The implication to be drawn from the foregoing pronouncement of this court has been interpreted by our later decisions. In the case of State v. Egbert, supra, 125 Iowa 447, 101 N.W. 192, we state:

" The crimes of rape and assault with intent to commit rape, as has often been said, are easily charged and difficult to disprove. The just indignation felt by all right-thinking persons when a bestial assault has been made upon a girl predisposes jurors to accept as sufficient any evidence which, to their minds, tends to connect the accused with the commission of the crime. It was with the very purpose of protecting those who might be accused of such crimes from conviction without satisfactory evidence of guilt that the statutory provision was enacted, and it is our duty to apply the statute without hesitation, and give to it its reasonable interpretation, regardless of the effect which may result from its application in any particular case.

Counsel for the state have urged upon us a consideration of the cases of State v. Fountain, 110 Iowa 15, 81 N.W. 162,State v. Peterson, 110 Iowa 647, 82 N.W. 329, and other cases in which language is used with reference to corroboration in such cases which, as they claim, would justify the jury in considering the complaints made by the prosecuting witness, the condition of her underclothing, and her description of the defendant, as sufficient in this case to constitute the corroboration required by the statute. But counsel have entirely misconceived the meaning of the language used by the court in the cases referred to. The complaints of prosecutrix, soon after the commission of the crime, and the condition of her body and clothing, may constitute corroboration of her testimony that a crime has been committed, but they cannot possibly constitute the corroborating evidence required by the statutory provision above referred to. Certainly the declarations of prosecutrix identifying the defendant as the person who committed the crime can have no greater weight than the testimony of prosecutrix under oath to the same effect; but by the statutory provision the testimony of prosecutrix alone is insufficient to justify a conviction."

Again, in the case of State v. Powers, supra, 181 Iowa 465, 164 N.W. 860, we state: " No chain can be stronger than its weakest link; therefore corroboration is essential to conviction. It is a distinct part of the evidence required to establish the crime. State v. Cohen, 108 Iowa 208, 78 N.W. 857, 75 Am.St.Rep. 213; State v. McCracken, 66 Iowa 569, 24 N.W. 43.The very words of the statute preclude corroboration coming from the mouth of the complainant. Code, § 5488. And see State v. Carpenter, 124 Iowa [5, at] 15, 98 N.W. 775; State v. Watson, 81 Iowa [380], at 387, 46 N.W. 868.This seems to have been overlooked in State v. Peterson, 110 Iowa [647, at] 649, 82 N.W. 329, for that it is there indicated that the making of complaint is a corroborative circumstance. The citations relied on there do not sustain any such rule, and we have held, both before and since the decision of the Peterson case, that complaint and still other things afford no corroboration."

In State v. John, supra, 188 Iowa 500, 176 N.W. 282, in holding that evidence of opportunity, together with declarations of the prosecutrix were not sufficient corroboration to meet the requirements of the statute, we state: " Now it is apparent that defendant was in his own home; that the prosecuting witness was there by his permission, a servant working in his home. He had opportunity to do the thing charged to have been done by him. He was there, she was there, and they were alone. There is not one scintilla of evidence tending to connect the defendant with the commission of the crime charged, except that which comes from the mouth of the prosecuting witness herself. This is not sufficient, under the law, to make corroboration."

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