State v. Williams

• Decision Date: 10 July 1909
• Docket Number: 2015
• Citation: 36 Utah 273,103 P. 250
• Court: Utah Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE v. WILLIAMS

103 P. 250

36 Utah 273

STATE v. WILLIAMS

No. 2015

Supreme Court of Utah

July 10, 1909

Appeal from District Court, Third District; Hon. John F. Chidister Judge.

The defendant, Nathaniel Williams, was convicted of rape and appeals.

REVERSED.

Corfman & Rydalch for appellant.

A. R Barnes, Attorney-General, for the State.

McCARTY J. STRAUP, C. J., and FRICK, J., concur.

OPINION

McCARTY, J.

The defendant was informed against in the Fourth Judicial District Court, sitting at Provo, Utah, for the crime of rape alleged to have been committed on a female child under thirteen years of age. The defendant was tried, found guilty of an assault with intent to commit rape, and sentenced to serve a term of seven years in the state prison. To reverse the judgment of conviction, the defendant has appealed to this court.

The record shows that the crime was committed, if committed at all, at defendant's residence in Provo City, Utah, about the middle of August, 1905. The child on whom the alleged assault was committed first made complaint of the outrage about the first of the year 1908, nearly three years after it occurred. The defendant at the time of the alleged assault was seventy years of age, and had lived in Provo for more than fifty years. He was a man of good character, and up to the time of this trouble his reputation for chastity and virtue was good. He owned and lived in a house of two rooms in the residence district of Provo City, and in close proximity of homes and residences of other people. He was a widower; his wife having died about three years prior to the alleged assault. He lived alone in one room and did his own housework. The other room he rented to university students during the school seasons. Sometimes it was occupied by lady students and at other times by male students. At the time of the alleged assault school was closed for the season, and this extra room was unoccupied. The principal witnesses against the defendant were the prosecutrix, who, at the time the alleged crime was committed, was ten years of age, and another little girl who was twelve years of age. They testified that they went to the defendant's home at about two o'clock p. m. on the afternoon of the day on which it was claimed that the crime was committed, and were admitted into the house by defendant; that, on entering the room in which defendant was living, they went and sat down on the side of the bed, and the defendant asked the prosecutrix if he "could play with her," and, on receiving an affirmative answer, he pushed her over on the bed, and had sexual intercourse with her; that he was about five minutes completing the act; that the other little girl got off the bed and sat in a chair until defendant got through with his criminal assault on the complaining witness; that then defendant had criminal relations with the other little girl also; that he then gave each of them a small sum of money, one ten and the other twenty-five cents, and they immediately thereafter left the house; that they were at defendant's house about twenty-five minutes on that occasion. The prosecutrix also testified that this was the first time she had ever met defendant and the first time she was ever at his home. She further testified that defendant's sexual organ penetrated her, but not far enough to cause her any pain. On cross-examination she testified that at the preliminary examination in which defendant was bound over to answer to the district court she was called as a witness, and testified that there was no penetration and in answer to the following question, "While Mr. Williams was laying on you in the manner you described, what, if anything did you feel on your legs and upon your private parts," said, "I didn't feel anything." She also testified that at the preliminary hearing questions were put to her and she answered as follows: "Q. But you are sure that the old gentleman never had his private parts in your private parts? A. Yes, sir. Q. You are sure of that--you never felt it, did you? A. No, sir. Q. You are sure of that? A. Yes, sir." The other girl testified that her mother on several occasions prior to the alleged assault had sent her to defendant's home with bread, and that the only time "anything happened" was when she went to defendant's home with the prosecutrix on the occasion referred to. In reply to the question, "You only went there once that anything happened," she answered, "Yes, sir. I went there once or twice after that. He gave us money, but nothing happened." Her testimony was also impeached by showing that before the trial she had stated to parties that no such occurrence--criminal conduct on the part of the defendant--such as she testified to at the trial had ever taken place. She, however, endeavored to reconcile her testimony and her former statements by saying that she meant that nothing of the kind had taken place within the two years next preceding the time of the filing of the information upon which defendant was tried. She also admitted that in the year 1904, a year prior to the alleged assault, she falsely stated to a party whom she met on the street that she had just come from defendant's home, and that he had murdered a little girl--a friend of hers--and rolled the body up in some bedding. Several physicians and surgeons of high professional standing were called as witnesses, and testified that it would be impossible for a man of mature years to have sexual relations, or attempt to have such relations, with a female child of the age of ten years or under (in the manner in which the evidence introduced by the state shows the crime in question was accomplished), "without causing great physical pain and injury to the sexual organs of such female."

From the record it appears that while the prosecutrix was upon the witness stand, and after she had testified to the facts and circumstances leading up to and surrounding the alleged assault upon her by the defendant and to what he said and did immediately thereafter, questions were asked by the district attorney and answered by the witness as follows: "Q. Did he say anything about any other girl? A. Why, he said that there were some girls from the First ward came up that he would do the same thing. Q. Said what? A. Said there were some girls from the First ward that came up quite a bit, and he would do the same thing to them that he done to (naming the girl who was with the complaining witness at the time of the assault) and I." Timely objections were made by the defense to this evidence on the grounds that it was immaterial, irrelevant, and incompetent. We think the admission of this testimony was error. At the time it is claimed this statement was made by defendant concerning his alleged criminal relations with other girls the crime for which he was on trial had been committed, and there was nothing left to be done on his part to complete it. The statement that he had committed like crimes with other girls in no way tended to elucidate or explain the alleged assault upon the complaining witness. It was a narrative or recital of transactions which were neither directly nor remotely connected with the crime under consideration. The crimes thus sought to be proved were committed on other parties at other times, and were entirely distinct and separate from the specific crime charged in the information, and formed no link in the chain of events leading up to and surrounding the offense, and did not tend in the remotest degree to prove any fact whatever material to the issue. In fact, it is not claimed that there was any logical connection between the crime charged and those sought to be proved by this alleged statement of defendant, nor that proof of these other crimes tended to establish the one for which he was on trial. We can conceive of no purpose for which this evidence was introduced, unless it was to show a general disposition on the part of defendant to commit crimes of that character, and thereby increase the probability that he committed the one charged in this case.

The authorities uniformly hold in this class of cases that where a defendant is on trial for a particular crime evidence that he on some other occasion committed a separate and distinct crime wholly disconnected from the crime charged on some person other than the one mentioned in the information or indictment is never admissible:

"Proof of a distinct substantive offense is never admissible unless there is some logical connection between the two from which it can be said that proof of the one tends to establish the other. Thus in a prosecution for rape testimony would not be competent that at a time not comprehended within the res gestae the defendant had committed a rape on another woman." Gillett, Ind. & Col. Ev., section 57.

In Wharton's Am. Crim. Law, sec. 635, the author says:

"It is under no circumstances admissible for the prosecutor to put in evidence the defendant's general bad character, or his tendency to commit the particular offense charged, nor is it admissible to prove independent crimes, even though of the same general character, except when falling strictly within the exceptions stated."

The evidence under consideration does not fall within the exceptions referred to by the author. In 10 Enc. Ev. 597, the rule is stated as follows:

"In a prosecution for rape it is not competent for the state to introduce evidence tending to show that the defendant attempted to commit a similar offense upon a female other than the prosecutrix."

The same general question was involved in the case of State v. Hilberg, 22 Utah 27, 61 P. 215. Mr. Justice Miner, speaking for the court, said:

"The general rule in criminal cases, subject to exceptions, is well settled that, where one...