State v. Bailey

178 P. 201, 90 Or. 627, 1919 Ore. LEXIS 13
CourtOregon Supreme Court
DecidedJanuary 28, 1919
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 178 P. 201 (State v. Bailey) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Oregon Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Bailey, 178 P. 201, 90 Or. 627, 1919 Ore. LEXIS 13 (Or. 1919).

Opinion

HARRIS, J.

Because of the questions presented by several of the 39 assignments of error, it will be appropriate to introduce the discussion with a statement of some of the conceded facts and also with a recital of a considerable portion of the evidence. The defendant and L. A. Rawlings are residing on neighboring homesteads located on the High Desert about 45 miles east of Bend. Rawlings entered upon his homestead in 1910 and Mrs. Bailey’s husband entered upon the Bailey homestead probably in 1912. Rawlings lived alone; he called his place the Harney Holes Ranch. The Bailey home is about a mile and three quarters east of the Rawlings residence. There is evidence tending to show that Rawlings was a frequent visitor at the Bailey home. Mrs. Bailey’s husband worked for a sheepman, and his employment kept him away from home most of the time, so that during the greater portion of the time Mrs. Bailey was alone with her son Oscar Whitney. Rawlings was between 65 and 72 years old; the defendant was [630]*630about 36 years of age; and Oscar Whitney’s fourteenth birthday occurred on January 10, 1917.

According to the story told by Rawlings, “about the early part of the year” 1916 Mrs. Bailey told him “that when she got the money, she wanted my ranch.” He testified that afterward, in the latter part of November, or the first part of December he was passing the Bailey ranch

“one day and she stopped me and showed me a forty-five hundred dollar check on a San Francisco Bank. * * She says you can make the deed out now. for the ranch, — and I says, I told her, — there is no use being in a hurry, if you got the money to pay for it she is sold; but I says not until you have got the money. There is nothing doing. ”

Proceeding with his narrative, Rawlings told the jury that subsequently, on or about December 11, 1916, Mrs. Bailey represented .to him that

‘ ‘ she was buying a bunch of cattle, and that they was in the possession of one Lawson living over on Crooked River, that they was- fourteen (14) cows and one bull, and she said that there was a mortgage on them for five hundred dollars, and that she only had three days to raise the money to keep them from taking the property under the' mortgage.”

Rawlings also stated that Mrs. Bailey explained that in order to prevent a certain person with whom she had been litigating from getting “this money” she intended “to put the forty-five hundred dollar check in the First National Bank of Bend through Judge Ellis”; and that she said that if he would loan her $500

“she would pay it back when, — after that check got back, — when they told her that San Francisco cheek had been collected.”

[631]*631Rawlings claims that relying on what she said about the forty-five hundred dollar check he gave her a check for $500 on the First National Bank of Bend and that she gave him her promissory note for that amount; and that he wrote on the end of the note' these words: “secured by a lien on fourteen cows and one blooded bull, all of which are now in the possession of one Mr. Lawson.” There is evidence tending to show that on December 12, 1916, a check for $500 signed by L. A. Rawlings was presented to the First National Bank of Bend and that the bank honored it by paying $200 in cash and placing $300 to the credit of “Mr. or Mrs. J. J. Bailey.” Raw-lings asserted that the check which he gave to Mrs. Bailey was paid, because the bank returned it to him along with other paid and canceled checks.

Among the exhibits received in evidence is a deed marked Plaintiff’s Exhibit “E.” This instrument is dated December 19,1916, is signed by Lee Alexander Rawlings and purports to convey the Harney Holes Ranch to Mrs. Bailey for the expressed consideration of $3,200. There is evidence tending to show that on the day when this deed was executed, or on the following day, Rawlings delivered the deed to Mrs. Bailey and that she gave him a' check on the First National Bank of Bend for $3,870. Rawlings says that this check covered the following three items: $3,200, the purchase price of the Harney Holes Ranch, $170 the sum to be paid for “the horses, harness and other things” and $500, the amount of the note which had been given by Mrs. Bailey. Raw-lings claims that he mailed the check to the bank and that the bank returned the check to him by the next mail “along just before Christmas” because it was

[632]*632“no good.” Rawlings says that he then “took the cheek back to her (Mrs. Bailey) and told her that she would have to fix it up.” According to the evidence relied upon by the prosecutiou, Mrs. Bailey “said we would come down [to Bend] and fix up that returned check.” Rawlings testified that “we did set a date to go down and then she couldn’t go down that day, or she said she couldn’t go that day”;

and that she afterwards returned the deed to him.

“After Mrs. Bailey had gotten back” the thirty-eight hundred and seventy dollar check, she told Raw-lings, according to his testimony, that the forty-five hundred dollar check drawn on the San Francisco bank had been cashed and “that the money was in the bank”; and he says that subsequently on January 11, 1917, he sent the check by mail to the First National Bank of Bend for collection. Mrs. Bailey made a trip to Portland. Rawlings stated that upon her return from that trip “she asked me to send in and get the note; that she wanted to pay it off”; and that in compliance with her request he wrote to the bank- on February 12, 1917, to return the note to him. The bank mailed the note to Rawlings and he “sent her word by one of the neighbors” that be “had the note”; and two or three days afterward, on Sunday, February 25th, Oscar Whitney came to Harney Holes Ranch and told Rawlings
“that his mother wanted me to come up and bring the note, and that she wanted to settle it.”

Rawlings testified that on the following day, Monday, February 26, he rode over to the Bailey ranch for the purpose of collecting the five hundred dollar note. Rawlings entered the house upon Mrs. Bailey’s in[633]*633vitation and after he had heen there a short time he started to leave and then, according to his testimony, Mrs. Bailey “grabbed” him and with the aid of the boy, Oscar Whitney, tied his hands and feet and sat him “down in a chair.” To nse the language of Raw-lings,

“I was in a very bad state of health and I found out that I was very weak, and that they could handle me.”

Rawlings says that he succeeded in disengaging his hands and that he cut the rope from his feet and in the words of the record,

“I got up and got to the door again, and it was fastened, or at least I couldn’t get it open, and she came up behind me again, and then she bound me again.”

This witness also told the jury that Mrs. Bailey attempted to force him to drink a drug which, according to the testimony of the boy, was laudanum. Raw-lings claims that after he had been bound the second time and while his hands and feet were tied Mrs. Bailey took the five hundred dollar note and the canceled check for which the note had been given from his inside vest pocket and then “burned them up.” He says, too, that after Mrs.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

State v. Sikes
427 P.2d 756 (Oregon Supreme Court, 1967)
State v. Parker
384 P.2d 986 (Oregon Supreme Court, 1963)
State v. Dixon
321 P.2d 305 (Oregon Supreme Court, 1958)
State v. Ewing
149 P.2d 765 (Oregon Supreme Court, 1944)
State v. Weitzel
69 P.2d 958 (Oregon Supreme Court, 1937)
State v. Gillis
59 P.2d 679 (Oregon Supreme Court, 1936)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
178 P. 201, 90 Or. 627, 1919 Ore. LEXIS 13, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-bailey-or-1919.