State v. Sudduth

• Decision Date: 30 June 1898
• Citation: 30 S.E. 408,52 S.C. 488
• Parties: STATE v. SUDDUTH.
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

30 S.E. 408

52 S.C. 488

STATE v. SUDDUTH.

Supreme Court of South Carolina

June 30, 1898

Appeal from general sessions circuit court of Greenville county Ernest Gary, Judge.

W Henry Sudduth was convicted of rape, and appeals. Affirmed.

J. A Mooney and Shuman & Dean, for appellant.

M. F Ansel, for the State.

POPE J.

The defendant (appellant) was tried for the terrible crime of rape, and was found guilty by the jury, with a recommendation to mercy. After his sentence by his honor, Judge Ernest Gary, to imprisonment for his whole life in the state penitentiary, he has appealed to this court.

By his grounds of appeal he presents the following questions for our consideration:

First. That it was not competent for a witness for the state (who was the mother of the outraged young woman) to testify as to what the victim said to her mother when she first saw her after her ruin, there being an interval of about 20 hours from such time to the time the rape occurred. The circuit judge confined the solicitor to bringing out of the witness the fact that the victim wept on sight of her mother, and told her mother what occurred, but would not allow what was said to be testified to. It seems that the 16-year old maiden was criminally assaulted by her brother-in-law while he was carrying her at night to stay with his wife, who was her sister, while he should be absent from home in attendance upon a circus, and that the maiden did not return to her widowed mother until the next afternoon. While the rule is that too much time must not elapse between the occurrence and the statement, yet this court will not allow that the time which elapsed in this instance was too much. To whom could this young woman go better in the first instance than to her mother to tell of her woe? and as soon as she saw her mother a full disclosure was made. Appellant refers to section 213, 3 Greenl. Ev., to support his objection, but a careful examination of that section, and also section 212 of the same author, will show that the reception of this testimony is not supported as res gestæ; it is only a fact corroborative of the testimony of the complainant. No time is fixed by the author in which the complaint is to be made. She must not conceal it too long; this is all that is required. In this same connection, appellant complains that the mother, while testifying, was allowed to state that her daughter told her "that the defendant had pulled her off of ___." The words we have placed in quotation are the language employed by the witness. If error at all, it was harmless error.

Second. It is alleged here that error was committed by the circuit judge in allowing Mrs. Balleu, while testifying, to state that when the young woman was seen coming home to her mother, on the afternoon of the day following the night of the perpetration of the crime, she had said, "Yonder comes Jane;" and that she saw Jane wringing her hands, and crying; and that Jane's mother said to her, "Tell me what is the matter." We see nothing in this exception. If error at all, it was harmless error.

Third. That a certain Dr. Morrow was not allowed, on cross-examination, to state that the young woman who was outraged had told him that she did not use any force to prevent the outrage upon her person. This exception is not well taken.

No foundation was laid for the same when the prosecutrix was upon the stand giving her testimony, because she was not asked...