State v. Pryor
| Decision Date | 15 February 1912 |
| Court | Washington Supreme Court |
| Parties | STATE v. PRYOR. |
Department 2. Appeal from Superior Court, King County; Wilson R. Gay Judge.
Charles Pryor was convicted of abortion, and he appeals. Reversed.
A. G McBride and Jay C. Allen, for appellant.
John F Murphy, Alfred H. Lundin, H. B. Butler, and T. J. L. Kennedy for the State.
The appellant was convicted of the crime of abortion attempted by the use of certain instruments upon the person of one Regna Abramson, and prosecutes this appeal from the judgment of the court thereon. Many errors are assigned, but, as they are not of a nature likely to recur when the case is retried, we deem it unnecessary to review all of them. Neither do we find it necessary to review the competent evidence in relation to the crime actually charged further than to say that it would probably be sufficient to sustain the verdict had we reason to believe that it formed the sole basis of that verdict, and had the accused been accorded that fair and impartial trial according to law which is the natural right of every person accused of any crime, whatever its nature. Whether guility or innocent, the defendant was entitled to such a trial, and the state could demand nothing less. An examination of the record convinces us that it has not been accorded in this case.
In his opening statement to the jury the assistant prosecuting attorney said, among other things, that the state would prove that the defendant threw the prosecuting witness upon the ground, and had intercourse with her by force and against her will, and had compelled her to commit acts of sodomy with him upon five different occasions. The defendant objected to these statements, and requested the court to instruct the jury to disregard them. The court overruled the objections and declined to so instruct. Counsel for the defense, in his preliminary statement to the jury, admitted that shortly after they became acquainted the defendant and the prosecuting witness began living together the same as if they were husband and wife.
As a part of the state's case in chief the prosecuting witness was permitted, over objection of the defendant, to testify that the defendant by force and threats had ravished her many times, and had on five different occasions, by threats with a revolver and handcuffs, compelled her to commit the crime of sodomy with him. After this evidence, with all of its revolting details, had been admitted, the defendant, still insisting upon his objections thereto, moved the court to strike it. The court then intimated that, if the defendant would admit that the complaining witness was pregnant by the defendant, the motion would be granted. The defendant, bartering away one right in the hope of preserving another, accepted the terms offered, and admitted that the prosecuting witness was pregnant by him. The court then struck the evidence relative to the crimes of rape and sodomy, and instructed the jury to disregard it. Evidence of pregnancy of the woman by the defendant was clearly a part of the state's case as showing motive for the crime of abortion charged. The admission thus procured was in its nature extremely damaging to the defense. It cannot fairly be said that it was voluntary.
It requires no citation of authority to show that the accused did not have a fair trial. After the admission of the defendant's illicit cohabitation with the prosecuting witness, which was made in his preliminary statement to the jury, it is plain that evidence of rape was neither necessary nor proper. The defendant's admission of illicit cohabitation had already supplied conclusively whatever evidence of motive for the crime of abortion that illicit intercourse, whether by force or...
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