State v. Peters

• Citation: 9 N.W. 219,56 Iowa 263
• Parties: STATE OF IOWA v. PETERS.
• Decision Date: 11 June 1881
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Iowa

56 Iowa 263

9 N.W. 219

STATE OF IOWA

v.PETERS.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Filed June 11, 1881.

Appeal from Linn district court.

The defendant was indicted for a rape on Louise Haberman. He was tried, convicted of an assault with intent to commit rape, and sentenced to the penitentiary for two years and six months. He appeals.Blake & Harmel, for appellant.

Smith McPherson, Att'y Gen., for the State.

DAY, J.

The defendant, as a witness upon the trial, admitted that he had sexual intercourse with the prosecuting witness at the time named in the indictment, but claimed that the intercourse was with her consent. In finding the defendant guilty of an assault with intent to commit a rape, the jury must have found that the evidence did not show that the intercourse was against the will of the prosecutrix. The court instructed the jury that if the evidence failed to satisfy them that the defendant committed the crime of rape charged in the indictment, they might, if warranted, find him guilty of an assault with intent to commit a rape, and that the form of their verdict would be guilty of rape, guilty of an assault with intent to commit a rape, or not guilty. The jury were thus precluded from finding the defendant guilty of any lower grade of offence than an assault with intent to commit a rape. In State v. Vinsent, 49 Iowa, 241, it was held that, under an indictment for rape, a defendant may, if the evidence warrants it, be convicted of a simple assault, and that an instruction, by implication, precluding the jury from convicting of an assault, is erroneous. The peculiar circumstances disclosed by the testimony in this case raise a very grave doubt whether the defendant committed the offence of which he has been convicted, and we think he must have been prejudiced by the instructions which authorized a conviction for no less grade of offence than that of assault with intent to commit a rape. See State v. Vinsent, supra.

Reversed.