State v. Worthen

• Decision Date: 08 May 1900
• Parties: STATE v. WORTHEN.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

111 Iowa 267

82 N.W. 910

STATE

v.WORTHEN.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

May 8, 1900.

Appeal from district court, Benton county; G. W. Burnham, Judge.

The defendant appeals from a judgment convicting him of breaking and entering a dwelling house with intent to commit larceny. Affirmed.C. Nichols, for appellant.

Milton Remley, Atty. Gen., and Chas. A. Van Vleck, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

LADD, J.

A man's hand on the person of Grace Fort awakened her at 1 o'clock in the nighttime of June 6, 1898. She was prevented from screaming by the other hand covering her mouth, and was told to keep still. As soon as she was able to call for help, the intruder left the house through the doors, which were open. Her father reached the adjoining room as he left, and, though giving chase, was unable to overtake him. By the lamp light and that of the moon, however, he recognized the defendant. Evidently, he had entered through the window of the bedroom where Grace, who was 16 years old, and a sister were sleeping. The upper sash had been lowered a few inches, and was held in position by a piece of lath previously nailed on the outside. This was removed, the sash let down, and footprints, corresponding to defendant's shoes, appeared leading to the window from across the road, where a horse and buggy had been standing.

The defendant insists that, though the motive in entering Fort's house cannot be justified, the intent to steal is not to be inferred from these facts. Some presumptions are to be indulged in against one who enters a dwelling unbidden, at a late hour of night, else the burglar caught without booty might escape the penalties of the law. “The love of gain, the desire to get and have, is so wide a principle of human nature, that, other motives being eliminated, that remains as a sort of residuary solvent of conduct.” Steadman v. State (Ga.) 8 S. E. 420. People are not accustomed, in the nighttime, to enter the homes of others, when asleep, with innocent purposes. The usual object is theft, and this is the inference ordinarily to be drawn, in the absence of explanation from breaking and entering at night, accompanied by flight upon discovery, even though nothing has been taken. State v. Teeter, 69 Iowa, 718, 27 N. W. 485; State v. Maxwell, 42 Iowa, 211; State v. McBryde, 97 N. C. 393;1 S. E. 925;Alexander v. State (Tex. Cr. App.) 20 S. W. 756.

Do the facts of this case render such an inference improper? In Harvey v. State, 53 Ark. 425, 14 S. W. 645, a woman was awakened in the nighttime by the hard breathing of a stranger near her face and touching a private part of her person. She screamed, and saw him getting out of the window. The circumstances of State v. Boon, 57 Am. Dec. 555, were similar, except that the accused there touched the foot of the sleeping girl, and after it was drawn up grasped the ankle. In each of these cases a conviction of entering with intent to commit rape was sustained. The situation of the defendant when found kneeling at the bedside of the sleeping girl with his hand on her private parts, certainly indicated that he then had designs on her person, but other circumstances point to the improbability of that being his purpose in entering. The natural impulse of one intending to satisfy his lust would have been to prevent intrusion and insure secrecy. The record is silent as to the time he had been in the house, but shows that the doors were thrown open, and a light was burning in the front room. There were two girls in the bed. Fort and his wife were sleeping in an adjoining room. It is all but inconceivable that defendant, preparatory to assaulting this girl, opened up the house, or contemplated doing so with it open. A conclusion quite as reasonable is that, disappointed in his search for valuables he turned his attention to other things. The case is more like Coleman v. State, 26 Tex. App. 252, 9 S. W. 609, where a sleeping girl was awakened by the hand of the intruder on her breast. Five other persons were sleeping in the house. Nothing indicated he was not there by her consent, save her outcry and order to leave. The court declared “it more reasonable from the evidence to conclude that his intent was to commit theft than to commit any other crime.” See, also, Mitchell v. State, 33 Tex. Cr. R. 575, 28 S. W. 475;Hamilton v. State, 11 Tex. App. 116; Robinson v. State, 51 Md. 153. In People v. Soto, 53 Cal. 415, the accused entered a bedroom (where a woman and three children were sleeping) through a window, seized the woman by the throat, and threw himself across the bed, but, on her making an...