State v. Young

• Decision Date: 21 December 1889
• Citation: 12 S.W. 642,99 Mo. 284
• Parties: STATE v. YOUNG.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

12 S.W. 642

99 Mo. 284

STATE v. YOUNG.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

December 21, 1889.

DEFILING FEMALE EMPLOYE — VENUE IN CRIMINAL CASES.

1. Under Rev. St. Mo. 1879, § 1260, providing that "if any guardian of any female under the age of 18 years, or any other person to whose care or protection any such female shall have been confided, shall defile her by carnally knowing her while she remains in his care, custody, or employment," he shall be punished, a conviction may be had of one in whose family such female was employed as servant; there being evidence that he promised her father to see that she did not go out nights, and to treat her as one of the family.

2. An instruction that it must appear "that defendant was her lawful guardian, or occupied a relation similar to a guardian to her, in which a peculiar and confidential trust was reposed," is rightly refused.

3. Evidence of continuation of illicit intercourse after termination of the employment is admissible as tending to prove the offense charged.

4. Where no evidence was given as to the county in which the crime was committed, judgment will be reversed.

Appeal from circuit court, Dent county; C. C. BLAND, Judge.

L. B. Woodside, for appellant. The Attorney General, for the State.

BLACK, J.

Defendant was indicted, under section 1260, Rev. St., for defiling Eliza A. Smith. He was convicted, and his punishment assessed at a fine of $100, and imprisonment in the county jail for 24 hours. The evidence shows that a sister of the defendant's wife engaged Eliza A. Smith in December, 1883, to go to defendant's house to do kitchen work. The defendant's wife was then sick, and Eliza remained in the employ of the defendant, in the capacity of a kitchen girl, from that date until January or February, 1885. She was 16 years old when she went to live at defendant's house. Mr. Smith, the father of the girl, testified that a few weeks after she went to the defendant's house he saw defendant, and asked him how Eliza was getting along, and he said, "All right." He says: "I told him she was not strong, and I did not want her to work very hard. He said her work was light. About two or three weeks after this I spoke to him again, and told him I wanted him to see that Eliza did not work too hard, and that I did not want him to let her go out at night, except to church. He said all right, she would be treated just like one of the family." The evidence of the girl is to the effect that defendant gave her some money and presents at different times, and flirted with her until May, 1884, without anything wrong being done. That one night in that month he put his arm around her, and they then had sexual intercourse, which act was repeated in about a week thereafter. After that they had like intercourse two or three times a week, — sometimes in the dwelling-house, sometimes in the hen-house, and often out in a woods pasture. There is other evidence tending to corroborate her statements in some respects. The defendant testified that he never had any intercourse with Eliza; that her father never spoke to him about her; that she was hired at his house to do kitchen work, and he never had, or assumed to have, any control over her. He denied the statements of Eliza, and says he never had the alleged conversations with her father. The court, at the request of the state, instructed the jury as follows: "(1) The court instructs the jury that it is not necessary for the state to prove that the defendant had the legal custody and control of the person of Eliza Smith, but if they find from the evidence that she was in his employ, and that her father committed her to defendant's especial care, with the expectation and understanding that defendant would use a supervisory control over her, and that while she was so committed to defendant's care, and when she was under eighteen years of age, he debauched her by having carnal intercourse with her, they should find him guilty, and it makes no difference how readily or how often she consented to have sexual intercourse with the defendant," — and the court, of its own motion, told the jury "that the mere fact that Eliza Smith was employed by the defendant as his hired servant, and that while so employed she was defiled by him, does not authorize his conviction;" but refused, at the request of the defendant, to say that to find defendant guilty it must appear "that the defendant was at the time her lawful guardian, or occupied a relation similar to a guardian to her, in which a peculiar and confidential trust was reposed." The statute is in these words: "If any guardian of any female under the age of...