the v. Sanford
| Decision Date | 05 November 1894 |
| Parties | The State v. Sanford, Appellant |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Appeal from St. Louis Criminal Court. -- Hon. H. L. Edmunds, Judge.
Affirmed.
R. F Walker, Attorney General, for the state.
(1) The indictment sufficiently charges the offense under the statute. There is no error apparent upon the record proper. R. S. 1889, sec. 3480; State v. Wray, 109 Mo. 594; State v. Lacey, 111 Mo. 514. (2) A party charged with the offense of rape may be lawfully convicted of an assault with intent to ravish. R. S. 1889, secs. 3940, 3950; State v. Dalton, 106 Mo. 463. (3) The court did not err in permitting the mother to testify as to the condition of the child as discovered by her within a few days after the alleged assault; especially as the physician, who saw the child even later, had been allowed to testify, without objection, to the same facts.
Defendant was indicted for the offense of rape at the October term 1892, of the St. Louis criminal court charged with ravishing one Luzella Meneace, a female child under the age of fourteen years, in the city of St. Louis, on the nineteenth day of September, 1892. He was duly arraigned at the November term and pleaded not guilty. At the May term, 1893, he was convicted of an assault with intent to ravish, and his punishment fixed at four years in the penitentiary. Motions for new trial and in arrest were successively filed and overruled. Defendant is not represented in this court.
The testimony on the part of the state tended to show as follows: The prosecutrix, Luzella Meneace, was a little negro girl, not quite eight years old at the time of the commission of the alleged offense; she was in the habit of going to the house of a Mrs. Jones (also a negro) to take care of a baby. Defendant (also a negro) occasionally visited Mrs. Jones' house. On the nineteenth of September, 1892, the little girl went to the house of Mrs. Jones, at 1305 Poplar street, St. Louis, and took charge of the baby; when the latter went to sleep she laid it on the bed, and herself lay down on a couch (or sofa) in the same room, and fell asleep. She was awakened by the appellant, whom she found lying upon her body, between her limbs, "rubbing up and down;" her skirts had been drawn upon her breast, her drawers opened, and she felt a pain. When she awoke, he got off her and she saw his private parts exposed. He bade her arrange her clothing, while he arranged his own, and come with him to a laundry, and threatened that if she told any one of what had occurred he would shoot her. On the following Sunday her mother was bathing her and discovered something wrong. She was taken at once to the city dispensary, and there examined by the physician in charge, who testified that he found her private parts inflamed, unduly enlarged, and discharging purulent matter, but could not say whether there had been a penetration or whether the discharge was due to gonorrhea or ureteritis. The same physician examined the defendant a day or two afterward, in the jail, and found him suffering with the same discharge.
The testimony on the part of the defendant tended to show that he was a man of good character; that there were several persons in the house of Mrs. Jones at the time he was there on the day in question, and that he had nothing to do with the prosecutrix; that other persons occupied the couch, or sofa, at times, during the entire day; that the little girl at no time was on the sofa, or asleep. Defendant himself denied having anything to do with the child, and asserted that the testimony of the physician as to his having any trouble with his private parts was wholly false.
But one exception was saved to testimony during the trial. Over the objection of defendant, the mother of the...
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