Breiger v. State

269 S.W. 100, 99 Tex. Crim. 292, 1925 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 128
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Texas
DecidedFebruary 18, 1925
DocketNo. 8126.
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 269 S.W. 100 (Breiger v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Breiger v. State, 269 S.W. 100, 99 Tex. Crim. 292, 1925 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 128 (Tex. 1925).

Opinion

HAWKINS, Judge.

Conviction is for rape upon Mary Zak. Punishment, five years in the penitentiary.

Miss Zak is shown to have been a young woman twenty-six years of age. A short time after she went to work in a store in Taylor she met appellant at a dance. He would often pick her up in his car as she was coming to and from the store, and take her to whichever place she was bound. They would go automobile riding together and with other young people attended swimming parties. He professed to love her but never mentioned marriage. He had kissed her a number of times. The offense is claimed to have occurred on the night of December 25th. For perhaps a month prior to that time prosecutrix says appellant had been talking to her about girls and boys having “good times”; that she told him she was not that kind of a girl, to which he would reply that he knew she was a nice girl, but that everybody else was having “fun”, and why couldn’t they have some fun; that this was all he would say but that she understood what he meant; that she continued to go with him. A letter introduced in; evidence written by prosecutrix (referred to more in detail later) indicates that the subject of having a “good time” was discussed between them more intimately and extensively than appears from the above recital. On the night of December 25th appellant and prosecutrix went in an automobile some two or three miles east from Taylor where the ear was stopped. Prosecutrix testified as to what then occurred as follows:

“Then he stopped the ear and he says, ‘It sure is cold tonight;’ he said, “take a little drink of whiskey’ — he had something in a bottle, and he asked me to take a little drink of it, said it was whiskey. I said I didn’t drink whiskey. He said, ‘That won’t hurt *294 you, it will make you feel good.’ I refused, and he said ‘You are just afraid it is something else, but it is six dollar whiskey,’ and he said, ‘I am going to take a drink myself and get drunk myself,’ It smelled like whiskey; of course, I didn’t take any myself, but it smelled like whiskey. And he said, ‘Mary, this is Christmas night and we want to have some fun, I want you to be a real sweet little girl to me; let’s have some fun.’ I said ‘What do you mean?’ He said, “That is all right. Let’s have some fun like everybody else.’ I said ‘What do you take me for?’ ‘What do you think I am?’ He says, ‘Nothing,’ he said, ‘I know you are a nice girl, that is the reason I am going with you,’ and he said, ‘any time I ruin a girl I stay with her.’ I said, ‘No’. He said, ‘Let’s get out of the car.’ I said, ‘No.’ I was just trembling. And he got out of the ear and put his overcoat on the ground, and asked me to get out of the car. I wouldn’t do it and he kept on begging. I said ‘No,’ and began crying. He said ‘Hush .your crying.’ I was so excited I didn’t know what to do. I stayed in the car and held myself on to the steering wheel. He kept on begging me and I kept on crying. He said, ‘Come on, I am going to have my way this time,’ and he got real rough with me. He took hold of me; he caught hold of my arms and jerked me until he jerked me out of the car and got me down on the ground and we had a fight there, and when I could get my breath I said, ‘For God’s sake, kill me before you do anything else.’ He said, ‘No, I am not going to kill you, you just keep still.’ I was so excited I didn’t know what to do any more. And he tried to get me, and he couldn’t for a long time, and then I didn’t know any more, I fainted. I didn’t know any more until I was in the car and he had the car started. I just felt so weak and felt so sore. I said, ‘What did you do to me?’ He said, ‘I didn’t do anything.’ I said, ‘You surely did, I feel so bad.’ He said, ‘I didn’t do anything.’ I said, ‘You take me straight home.’ He said ‘all right,’ and he took me home. When I got out of the car and had this fight I fought with him and struggled with him. When I said I fainted I meant that I lost consciousness, I didn’t know anything about what he done with me or how long he kept me down. I was in the ear when I came to. The ear was standing still. He was in the car when I first regained consciousness, or by the car cranking up. I don’t remember if he had his overcoat on. I asked him then to take me home, and he took me home. I got home about 9:30. I did not know that night what he had done to me. That night I found a discoloration of some kind about my underclothes. Of course, I didn’t know what it was, but it was kinder like blood on my clothes when I got home. In addition to that I felt weak and I was sore and felt bad and everything like that. The soreness was about my private parts.”

*295 We condense her further testimony, — She says that about the second week in January she missed her menstrual period and went to Dr. Peaster for some medicine to correct the trouble; that she took the medicine without effect and a few days later went back to see him at which time he told her that sometimes boys were to blame for such condition to which she replied, “No, not in my case.” (This testimony was objected to but we will advert to that later.) She claims that at the time she went to Dr. Peaster she did not know that the appellant actually had an act of intercourse- with her. After her second visit to Dr. Peaster she phoned for appellant to come to her house and claims that in a conversation she again asked him what he had done to her on Christmas night, and told him about having missed her menstrual period; that she told him she did not know whether he had done anything to her because she was unconscious at the time; that he, told her then she need have no worry, that so far as he was concerned there was nothing wrong with her. After that she went to see Dr. Miller. She says neither Dr. Peaster nor Dr. Miller told her she was pregnant. Some time in February she went to see Dr. Wedemeyer. After examining her she says he informed her she was in a “family way;” that she re-replied to him, “Could that be possible and me not know it?” to which she says he replied, “Of course, if you were unconscious you wouldn’t know it, you must have fainted.” She says that upon this occasion she told Dr. Wedemeyer what had occurred between her and appellant on Christmas night. This is the first report she made of the matter, claiming to have then ascertained for the first time that appellant actually had intercourse with her. The record leaves it somewhat uncertain whether Dr. Wedemeyer told prosecutrix she must have fainted and of course would have no knowledge of the act before prosecutrix related to him the circumstances of the transaction with appellant, or whether his statement in that respect was made after she had related them. We remark here if the story told by prosecutrix is true she had known from Christmas night up to the time of her conversation with Dr. Wedemeyer that appellant had made an outrageous assault upon her though falling short of an actual rape as she claimed to believe, but she had made no report of it. She did not even report the matter to the authorities after learning from Dr. Wedemyer that she was pregnant. She says that after her visit to Dr. Wedemeyer she again had a conversation with appellant in which he advised her to go to Dr. Peaster and see if he would relieve her condition; that Dr. Peaster declined to do so; that after reporting this to appellant she had a conversation with an attorney; that-she then met appellant at the home of Father Dreiss, he being the Father in the Catholic Church to which both prosecutrix and appellant belonged.

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Related

Canova v. State
207 S.W.2d 404 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1947)
Rogers v. State
63 S.W.2d 384 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1933)
Goodwell v. State
49 S.W.2d 808 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1932)
White v. State
269 S.W. 792 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1925)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
269 S.W. 100, 99 Tex. Crim. 292, 1925 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 128, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/breiger-v-state-texcrimapp-1925.