State v. Rutledge

• Decision Date: 21 March 1919
• Docket Number: No. 20956.,20956.
• Citation: 142 Minn. 117,171 N.W. 275
• Parties: STATE v. RUTLEDGE.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

142 Minn. 117

171 N.W. 275

STATE

v.RUTLEDGE.

No. 20956.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

March 21, 1919.

Appeal from District Court, St. Louis County; Martin Hughes, Judge.

I. C. Rutledge was convicted of having carnal knowledge of female child under age of 18 years, and from an order denying his motion for a new trial, he appeals. Order affirmed.

Syllabus by the Court

In the trial of an indictment for carnal knowledge of a female within the age of consent it is not proper to ask the defendant as to undue familiarities approaching the nature of indecent liberties suggested to have been taken by him at different times with other girls; but the statement of the court to the jury that such questions should not have been asked and its emphatic direction to disregard them and to permit no impression to come from them, was such, the trial court being of the opinion that no harm resulted, that a new trial should not be granted by this court because of them.

A subsequent act of intercourse between the defendant and the prosecuting witness, if not too remote, may be shown. Such act occurring some 10 1/2 months after the one for which a conviction is asked, and at a time when the girl was over the age of consent, there being improper familiarities but nothing criminal between the time of the two alleged acts, is too remote; but when the evidence is taken without objection this court will not reverse and grant a new trial unless the situation is very extraordinary.

There was no error in denying a new trial upon the ground of newly discovered evidence. E. J. Kenny, of Duluth, for appellant.

Clifford L. Hilton and James E. Markham, both of St. Paul, Warren E. Greene, of Duluth, and Edward L. Boyle, of Virginia, for the State.

DIBELL, J.

The defendant was convicted of the crime of having carnal knowledge of a female child under the age of 18 years. He appeals from an order denying his motion for a new trial.

1. The defendant was a teacher in the Chisholm high school and the girl was his pupil. He was asked on cross-examination whether he had not taken improper familiarities, bordering in some cases on indecent liberties, with four other girls who were his pupils. Objections were overruled and he answered in the negative. Afterwards, when the jury was absent, the court sustained objections to offers to prove the facts suggested by the questions; and as counsel were about to commence their arguments to the jury called their attention to the questions and objections and rulings, and stated that upon investigation he was of the opinion that the rulings were in error and that the objections should have been sustained; and he instructed them to utterly disregard and dismiss from their minds everything in such questions and to permit no impression to come from them. The court said:

‘Those objections should have been sustained, and anything in those questions you will utterly disregard and dismiss from your minds as not being in the testimony in the case. Do not permit any impression to result from anything that was contained in those questions with reference to other girls. * * * I think I have made that plain, gentlemen.’

The questions related to the defendant's relations with other girls and suggested improper familiarities and liberties taken with them of a nature having some relation to the offense charged as having been committed against the girl named in the indictment. It was very much like proving other offenses which in general is not permissible, in this state. Dunnell's Minn. Dig. & Supp. § 2459, and cases cited. The view of the majority of the court is that it was improper to ask the questions and that they should not have been permitted. The view...