State v. Teipner

• Decision Date: 06 May 1887
• Citation: 32 N.W. 678,36 Minn. 535
• Parties: STATE v TEIPNER.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

36 Minn. 535

32 N.W. 678

STATEvTEIPNER.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

May 6, 1887.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Upon trial of an indictment for rape the prosecution may show the results of a medical and surgical examination of the person of the prosecutrix, made 12 days after the alleged commission of the offense.

A physician and surgeon upon the stand as a witness cannot properly refuse to answer a question, upon the ground that his answer will be expert evidence, and that he has not been summoned or paid as an expert witness.

The provision of the statute (Gen. St. 1878, c. 70, § 8) which allows a judge to allow to an expert witness “such fees or compensation as may be just and reasonable,” has reference to an allowance to be made after the witness has been summoned and dismissed without being sworn or examined, or after he has been sworn and examined, and not before.

Appeal from district court, Hennepin county.

Indictment and conviction for the crime of rape. Defendant appeals.

W. J. Hahn, for the State.

Sumner Ladd, for appellant.

BERRY, J.

1. Defendant was indicted for rape. Evidence upon the trial tended to show that the crime was committed as charged upon the evening of November 7, 1885. A physician and surgeon, sworn for the prosecution, stated that she knew the prosecutrix, a girl about 16 years of age, and that she first saw her about noon of November 19th.

She was then asked-First, if she made an examination of her person at that time; and, second, in what condition she found her private parts. Both questions were objected to by defendant on account of the remoteness of the time of examination from the date of the rape. But the questions were properly allowed. There is no presumption of law or fact that the lapse of time (between 11 and 12 days) was so great that an examination would not disclose marks of violence or other physical appearances resulting from the rape, if one there was. Neither is there any presumption, in the absence of evidence to raise one, that marks or appearances such as might result from the force or violence employed in accomplishing a rape were the effect of any fresh cause intervening the alleged rape and the examination. Whether there were or not was a question of fact. In a case of this kind, an examination is often of the first importance. Here the prosecutrix gave the only direct testimony as to the commission of the crime, and the results of the examination clearly tended to her corroboration. It was, of course, entirely competent for the defendant (as he did) to sift the testimony of the witness who made the examination, and to keep it within proper limits, as well as to contradict or rebut it. As respects the matter of the time when an examination is made, a moment's reflection will show that there is no analogy between a case like this at bar and one like State v. Shettleworth, 18 Minn. 208, (Gil. 191,) cited by defendant, where it is required that the complaints of the party seduced or violated must be recent, or that delay in making the same must be explained, to entitle them to be considered in evidence. Obviously, the latter case involves an entirely different principle.

2. Testimony having been received on the trial tending to show that the prosecutrix slept soundly after and on the night of the alleged rape, and that she did her work as a house servant the next day, one Moore, a physician and surgeon,...