State v. Yeager
Decision Date | 03 September 1918 |
Docket Number | No. 4338.,4338. |
Citation | 168 N.W. 749,41 S.D. 51 |
Parties | STATE v. YEAGER. |
Court | South Dakota Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from Circuit Court, Beadle County; Alva E. Taylor, Judge.
Horace Yeager was convicted of rape, his motion for a new trial was denied, and he appeals. Judgment and order reversed.Null & Royhl, of Huron, for appellant.
Clarence C. Caldwell, Atty. Gen., and A. A. Chamberlain, State's Atty., of Huron, for the State.
Defendant was convicted of rape, and appeals from the judgment and an order refusing a new trial.
The information filed in circuit court charged that the crime was committed on February 20, 1914. In his opening statement to the jury the state's attorney stated that “the state expects to show that along in February, 1914, *** defendant had intercourse with her [the complaining witness] at–in a coal shed at the schoolhouse; ***” and evidence supporting such statement was introduced upon the trial. The state, over objection, was permitted to introduce evidence tending to prove a separate and distinct act of sexual intercourse, testified, by complaining witness, as occurring two months after the act occurring in the coal shed. It was the claim of the state that it had the right to prove these two separate, distinct acts, either one as corroborative of the other, and, furthermore, that it could not be required to elect as to which act it would rely upon for conviction. The defense took the position that the state was bound to rely on the coalhouse act as the basis for conviction, and that proof of no act occurring subsequent to the act relied upon could be received as corroborative evidence. The trial court agreed with the state, and, by its instructions, authorized the jury to convict if they were able to reach a unanimous verdict as to either act. The above facts present the most important question before us.
[1][2] The state urges that, inasmuch as time is not an element of the crime of rape, the time alleged was immaterial, and it was competent to prove any act occurring within the statutory period of limitation. The state overlooks a very important fact–while time is immaterial the transaction charged is material. A defendant cannot be tried for two crimes under a charge of one; neither, under the claim that time is immaterial, can the state switch from one act and rest its case upon proof of another act. If there has been an error in the information as to the true time when the act charged was committed, the state is not barred from proving such act because of the fact that such proof establishes another date unless the date proven shows the prosecution barred by the statute of limitations. It is absolutely clear from the information, the opening statement of the state's attorney, and the evidence received that there was no error of date in the information, and that the act against which defendant was called to defend was the act claimed to have been committed, at the coal shed. For all the record shows, the jury may not have found defendant guilty of that act, but may have based their verdict on the other act. The reasoning in People v. Jenness, 5 Mich. 305, is peculiarly in point. In that case evidence of previous acts had been admitted, “not as substantive offenses, but in explanation and corroboration of the evidence of the act charged in the information.” The court says:
...
To continue reading
Request your trial