Belmont v. State

165 S.E. 45, 175 Ga. 15, 1932 Ga. LEXIS 178
CourtSupreme Court of Georgia
DecidedMarch 16, 1932
DocketNo. 8766
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 165 S.E. 45 (Belmont v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Georgia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Belmont v. State, 165 S.E. 45, 175 Ga. 15, 1932 Ga. LEXIS 178 (Ga. 1932).

Opinion

Hines, J.

Jack Belmont, alias Robert B. Smith, was indicted for the rape of a girl between the ages of 16 and 17 years. He was tried and found guilty, the jury recommending mercy and fixing his punishment at 3 to 5 years. His motion for new trial was overruled, and he excepted. On the trial these facts were shown in the evidence for the State: The alleged victim lived with her parents. She was not in the habit of going with boys. She had had very few “dates” in her life. On Friday afternoon, on the porch at the home of a schoolmate, she met the defendant. After talking awhile, the defendant asked her if he could have a date with her for the next night, saying that they might go to a show and to a dance afterwards. She told him that she would have to ask her mother, and he said he would telephone her that night to see if she could go. When he telephoned, she told him that her mother would not let [16]*16her go to a dance with him, but that she could go to a show. He then agreed to take her to the Fox theater. On Saturday night the defendant called at the home of her parents, and was introduced to her mother and older sister. He declared in their presence that they were going to the Fox theater. She said “Bye bye, mother,” and went with him, catching a street-car in front of the house. The defendant then took her down town on the street-car, and soon started talking about wanting to go to a dance instead of the theater. She told him that she didn’t want to go to a dance, as she had told her mother she was going to the theater. He insisted, and she kept telling him she must go to the show, and that she had told her mother they were going there. He said he would have her back by 10 o’clock, and that then they could go to a show. He then took her to a Lakewood street-car. When they got on the street-car she told him she didn’t want to go to Lakewood. He told her if she made any outcry the police would get her. He kept threatening her. She allowed the defendant to talk her into going with him to Lakewood. Out there they stayed at the dance a little while. The defendant began talking about a proposition of installing some kind of a drink-stand out there, and pointed to a man walking down the road in the fair-grounds, and said he wanted to see that man about the proposition. The man started walking off down the road and defendant kept following him and pulling the girl along. They walked along following this man about 500 yards, beyond where the road was closed. There was a plank across the road. It was blocked, and the girl didn’t see any one. They walked beyond where the road was blocked. Finally they got to the landing at Lakewood where they load trains and cars, and there was a railroad-track there. The landing was beside that. It was about four feet high from the ground.

The girl gave this account of what then took place: “What happened there, I kept pulling back and told him I wanted to go home. He had hold of me, and he jumped off of this landing and got hold of my foot. To keep him from pulling me off I jumped off. I kept telling him I wanted him to take me back home. When he got me down there a little ways, down under this landing, down this railroad-track by this landing, he still had hold of my hand, and he went underneath there and pulled me under. When he got me underneath there he threw me down on the ground and tried to [17]*17choke me, and I thought he was trying to kill me. I didn’t want him to do anything to me. He then held my hand; that was the first time he committed the act against my person. He had intercourse with me. I suppose it was about an hour he kept me down them. I was using my hands and struggling, and my watch came off, and I broke my compact; and I don’t know whether it was there I lost the set out of my ring, or the second place, but I lost it. I got my back hurt there with a piece of iron, where he threw me down on the ground, had me down on a piece of iron. I felt it; it was on the ground under that platform, under the railroad-track; that was the time I felt that in my back. I never consented for him to do that act with me. I tried to resist all the way through. I tried so hard till I fainted. I was not near any one as I knew of. Nobody was around there during that period as I know of. I did not scream. I was afraid to scream. I think he kept me down there about an hour. He hurt me. When he kept struggling with me he hurt me, he bruised me, and hurt me in my back where his finger-nails pressed in my back. He hurt me other ways; he hurt my privates; he hurt me there. I had never gone through.that act with any man before, never had. I was sixteen then. I am seventeen years old now. . . We left that place. I guess he finally got through, and came on out, and he went on back then and got my watch and got my compact. He went back underneath there and found my watch. We walked the railroad-track to the road, and I tried to get out the gate to go home. He says, ‘If you go back up there the police will arrest you, you will be in trouble,’ and he pulled me back towards the Pryor Street road. We went up there and were almost to the gate, and he says, ‘Let us go over there and sit down. I am so hot I don’t know what I am doing.’ I says, ‘I am not hot,’ and he saw a path and went down the bank, a pathway behind those signs, and he pulled me down behind the signs; and that was the second place, I mean the second he had intercourse with me, and he did the same thing to me there he did at the first place, and he kept me there at this second place about as long as he did at the first one, . . and he hurt me there at the second place. When he pressed on me he hurt me. When he pressed himself up against me he bruised me. He hit me and bruised me. He hit me during the time between the first and second place, between the first and second time this happened, he slapped me in the face.. He [18]*18slapped me in the face with the open palm of his hand. . . I said he hurt me at this second place. He just did. I don’t know how he did it. I resisted him there as much as I conld. I thought he was trying to kill me again, but I was too weak then to fight him. He finally got through there. Then we went to that gate; when we got there we found it was locked, and then we had to go back over to the other side, to the buildings where the rodeo-show was kept, where a lot of people stayed. He decided there he wanted some water, and we went down to the barn and got some water and washed my face, or tried to; and then this party he saw there let us out the gate by the barns; and then we were out to the road, and then we started up the road, and it was too late to get a ear; and then he said we would walk about a mile up the road and catch a taxi. We kept walking and finally got up there, and I was just so sick when we got up there I didn’t know what I was doing, and there was a gipsy woman there who gave me some ammonia. I talked to the gipsy woman there. I told her I was sick. She asked me what made me sick. I couldn’t tell her like I told you. I told her I was sick at my stomach. I felt like I was going to faint, and she gave me some ammonia. I didn’t drink anything else there. She put it out before me, and I waited a few minutes, but I was too sick to take it. We stayed at that place about fifteen or twenty minutes. Then he asked the man if he could get a way for us to get home, and he said he closed the place about two o’clock in the morning and then he would take us home. We then walked up to the next place and tried to get a taxi. We kept walking by places and then went into a negro place to get some ice water, and lie went off again and talked to a negro man. I don’t know what he said there.

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Related

Berry v. State
195 S.E. 172 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 1938)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
165 S.E. 45, 175 Ga. 15, 1932 Ga. LEXIS 178, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/belmont-v-state-ga-1932.