State v. Pierce
| Decision Date | 20 December 1901 |
| Docket Number | 12,844 - (25) |
| Citation | 88 N.W. 417,85 Minn. 101 |
| Parties | STATE v. THOMAS J. PIERCE |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Appeal by defendant from an order of the district court for St Louis county, Ensign, J., denying a motion for a new trial. Reversed.
Abortion -- Use of Instruments -- Opinion of Witness.
The defendant, a physician, was convicted of the crime of abortion, and the principal and vital question at the trial was whether he used instruments upon the person of the complaining witness, and gave her medicines, with an intent to bring about a premature delivery, or for the purpose of treating her for a venereal disease; the use of instruments and the giving of medicines being admitted. Against the objections of defendant's counsel the trial court permitted this witness to express her opinions or conclusions as to the purpose for and intent with which the instruments were used and the medicines furnished. Held, that this was prejudicial error, for which the verdict of conviction must be set aside.
J. B Richards, for appellant.
W. B. Douglas, Attorney General, J. M. McClintock, County Attorney, and T. H. Salmon, for the State.
The defendant was convicted at the city of Duluth of the crime of abortion, and from an order denying his motion for a new trial appeals to this court.
There are several assignments of error, but of these two only, and of the same nature, need be considered, for we regard both as well taken, -- that the rulings thereby questioned were noticeably prejudicial; and, as a result, a new trial must be had.
The facts necessary to a discussion of these assignments may be thus stated: Vinnie Norberg, an unmarried woman and pregnant, visited the defendant, a practicing physician in said city, for the purpose, as she claims, of ascertaining where she could go for care and shelter when about to be confined, some two or three months in the future. She testified that defendant then advised her to produce a premature delivery by means of an operation, which he could and would perform. It is undisputed that two days later the doctor used some instruments upon her, and gave her medicine, -- a liquid contained in a bottle and some tablets in a box; that she paid him $25 for the services; and that some ten days afterwards she aborted.
It was the contention of the state, at the trial, that the instruments in question were used and the medicine prescribed for the express purpose of producing a premature delivery while it was claimed on the part of the defendant, who testified in his own behalf, that he used the instruments and gave the medicine for another and perfectly proper purpose, namely, to cure her of a venereal disease. The woman did not pretend to know, nor was she able to describe, the kind of instruments used, but she knew that he used instruments, and that he gave her the liquid and the tablets. The defendant's testimony was to the effect that he made an examination of the woman after she had informed him that she was in trouble; that he positively refused to comply with her demand that he operate for the purpose of producing a premature delivery; that he examined her solely to ascertain the nature of a disease she had, properly using a speculum for such examination; that he diagnosed this disease...
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