State v. Rennick
| Decision Date | 12 April 1905 |
| Citation | 103 N.W. 159,127 Iowa 294 |
| Parties | STATE OF IOWA, Appellee, v. T. J. RENNICK, Appellant |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
Appeal from Calhoun District Court.--HON. S. M. ELWOOD, Judge.
Affirmed.
Tom H Milner, for appellant.
C. W Mullan, Attorney-General, and L. DeGraff, Assistant Attorney-General, for the State.
The defendant was convicted upon the charge of incest upon the person of his daughter, and appeals.
As to many of the rulings of the trial court which are here complained of, no exceptions were preserved, and we cannot consider them. As to other matters which are properly presented, we may briefly say:
I. The indictment charges the acts constituting the crime substantially in the language of the statute, but its sufficiency is challenged by the appellant because it does not charge that defendant knew the prosecuting witness to be his daughter. The objection is not well taken. The statute makes no such requirement. Whether, if the fact be shown in evidence that the intercourse between a man and woman within the prohibited degrees was had without knowledge of their family relationship, it would entitle the accused to an acquittal, we need not here decide. It is enough to say the statute does not make knowledge one of those essential facts which must be affirmatively alleged and proved by the State. Hicks v. People, 10 Mich. 395; State v Dana, 59 Vt. 614 (10 A. 727); State v. Wyman, 59 Vt. 527 ( 8 A. 900, 59 Am. Rep. 753); Bergen v. People, 17 Ill. 426 (65 Am. Dec. 672). The case of Baumer v. State, 49 Ind. 544 (19 Am. Rep. 691), cited by appellant, is governed by the statute of that State, which expressly makes knowledge of the relationship an essential element in the definition of incest.
II. The objection to the sufficiency of the evidence to support a conviction is untenable. The testimony to the criminal act is clear and positive. Its credibility was for the jury.
It is claimed by counsel that the defendant could not be rightfully convicted upon the uncorroborated testimony of the daughter, and that the jury should have been so instructed. There is no statutory requirement which makes corroboration necessary in such cases. The only direct evidence as to the circumstances of the alleged crime is found in the testimony of the daughter, who testifies unequivocally that the connection was accomplished by force and against her will. There is an entire absence of testimony from which the jury could have found any consent on her part. She was therefore not an accomplice, whose evidence must be corroborated to support a conviction. State v. Kouhns, 103 Iowa 720, 73 N.W. 353.
It may also be said that the court's instructions as to the elements of the crime and the material facts which must be proved to establish it were clearly correct, and if the appellant believed there was any testimony from which the consent of the daughter could be inferred, thereby making her an accomplice, who required corroboration, he should have requested an additional instruction based on that theory. This he did not do, and he is therefore not in position to allege error upon the omission.
He advances the theory that the daughter and one Stoner entered into a conspiracy against him; but whether the object of this...
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