State v. Lawhorn

157 S.W. 344, 250 Mo. 293, 1913 Mo. LEXIS 149
CourtSupreme Court of Missouri
DecidedMay 20, 1913
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 157 S.W. 344 (State v. Lawhorn) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Lawhorn, 157 S.W. 344, 250 Mo. 293, 1913 Mo. LEXIS 149 (Mo. 1913).

Opinion

FARIS, J.

Defendant was tried in the circuit court of Shannon county on the 9th day of January, 1912, upon the charge of rape. The triers of fact found him guilty thereof and assessed his punishment at imprisonment in the penitentiary for a term of five years. Front the sentence and judgment of the. court imposed in pursuance of the jury’s verdict, he has, after the usual motions for a new trial and in arrest of judgment, appealed to this court.

The information upon which this prosecution is based is, caption omitted, as follows:

“G. S. Sizemore, prosecuting attorney within and for the county of Shannon and State of Missouri, under his oath of office and upon the information of the affidavit of Dorothy Benson herein filed, informs the court that Ed Lawhorn on or about the 27th day of August, 1910, at the said county of Shannon, State, of Missouri, then and there in and upon one Dorothy Benson, unlawfully, violently and feloniously did make an assault, and her the said Dorothy Benson, then and there, unlawfully, forcibly and against her .will, feloniously did rape, ravish and carnally know; against the peace and dignity of the State. ’ ’

This information was not verified by the prosecuting attorney, though, as appears from the allegations therein, it was based upon a complaint, duly verified, by the prosecutrix and filed with one H. C. Meade, a justice of the peace of Shannon county. It appears that upon the filing of this complaint with the said justice of the peace a warrant was duly issued, and'after the proper procedure pursuant to statute, a preliminary trial was accorded defendant and he was held on bail to await the action of the grand jury, or the filing against [297]*297Mm of an information. The transcript of the justice, together with the verified complaint, was filed in the office of the clerk of the circuit court by the justice of the peace prior to the filing of the information herein. No supporting affidavit, and in fact no affidavit other than the one filed with the justice of the peace in verification of the complaint aforesaid, was ever filed in the circuit court, nor was the information verified either by the prosecuting attorney or by anyone else. A motion to quash the information was filed by the defendant and by the court overruled, prior to his trial. In this motion to quash the lack of statutory verification of the information was strenuously urged, and has been properly preserved for review, and is here urged by the defendant.

The facts shown upon the trial on the part of the State are substantially as follows:

On August 27,1910, some sort of a picrnc occurred at West Eminence, in Shannon county. Present at this picnic were Dorothy Benson* the prosecutrix; Ed Lawhorn, the defendant; Jesse Benson, the father of prosecutrix; Joe Mahan, her uncle; Mrs. Deacon, an acquaintance of prosecutrix; Cynthia McDowell, also an acquaintance of prosecutrix; and others, but how many others, or how numerous were the others, does not appear from the record. Defendant Lawhorn was at work in some sort of a stand, then being operated upon the picnic grounds by one Daniel Emmons. Sometime during the day prosecutrix went to the stand where defendant was at work and had some conversation with him in the presence of her friend, CyntMa McDowell. Prosecutrix says that defendant inquired of-her how long she had been there, and whether or not she would be back again that night, and that he “set up the lemonade.” Defendant’s statement of this conversation differs from that of prosecutrix, but neither of them is corroborated, as one of them might well have [298]*298been, by Cynthia McDowell, the latter not being called as a witness. Shortly after this conversation prosecutrix left the picnic ground for the purpose of going a little distance away into the brush, ostensibly, to attend to a call of nature. Leaving the picnic ground she passed along an old road, near which and about fifty yards distant from, the picnic ground, she passed her uncle, Joe Mahan, who was about his wagon, in which he seems to have had a sick child. While she was talking to her uncle, defendant came along the same way, passed her and continued in the direction in which she was going, walking ahead of her. After leaving her uncle, and after going some twenty or thirty steps, she says that she was seized by the defendant, who said to her, “I have got you now,” and pulled and dragged her on up the road a distance of some 270- yards, to a field which he entered (still pulling her along with him) by opening a large gate, and after going a short distance into the field where there seems to have been weeds and brush grown up, he threw her down and had sexual intercourse with her at least twice — perhaps five times — though the number of 'these acts does not clearly appear from her testimony. The acts of alleged rape occurred some 350' or 400 yards from the picnic ground between one and two o’clock in the afternoon. While being pulled or dragged from the point mentioned, by defendant, she made no outcry and resisted only, as she says, by pulling back. In the act of copulation it became necessary to remove her drawers, which she says was done, and that after the acts were accomplished she put her drawers on and returned to the picnic grounds. Her testimony is to the effect that she resisted to her full strength and wept during the performance of the acts complained of; but the question of her resistance and the fact of her weeping are not corroborated, and rest upon her testimony alone. Upon her return to the picnic ground's, after the alleged rape, she went to her acquaintance, Mrs. Deacon, and [299]*299told the latter that defendant had thrown her down. At this time, as Mrs. Deacon testifies, there was dirt npon her clothing and a blood spot npon her left shoulder. She was not weeping then, nor does Mrs. Deacon say she appeared to have been weeping shortly previous, though this witness says her face was flushed. In her conversation with Mrs. Deacon she denied, or at least did not specifically state, that sexual intercourse had been consummated upon her person, but simply said that defendant “didn’t do anything, but he tried to. ’ ’ Being advised by Mrs. Deacon to tell her father what had occurred, prosecutrix sought him out and did so. "When she told her father about it she seems to have been crying. At the time of her conversation with Mrs. Deacon and also at the time'of her talk with her father, her clothing was noticeably soiled and disarranged. At the time of the alleged rape prosecutrix says she was unwell. At the time of the occurrence of the act charged, prosecutrix was almost fifteen years of age, or fourteen years and ten months old, lacking three days.

After prosecutrix’s father was advised by her of the alleged acts of defendant, he went to defendant and asked him about what had occurred. Defendant denied knowing anything about it, or of having anything to do with prosecutrix.

During the examination of prosecutrix’s father upon the trial he was asked this question: “Make a statement to the jury as to what she was doing and what she said to you at that time?” (That is, at the time following prosecutrix’s conversation with Mrs. Deacon and when she was telling her father of the alleged acts of the defendant). Objected to by the defendant as hearsay; which objection was by the court overruled, to which mling of the court the defendant excepted at the time. Thereupon the father of prosecutrix proceeded to detail not only what the latter had said to him, but what Mrs. Deacon had said to him in a con[300]

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

Related

State v. Roden
674 S.W.2d 50 (Missouri Court of Appeals, 1984)
Custer v. State
34 So. 2d 100 (Supreme Court of Florida, 1947)
State v. Fleming
188 S.W.2d 12 (Supreme Court of Missouri, 1945)
State v. Conrad
14 S.W.2d 608 (Supreme Court of Missouri, 1929)
State v. Taylor
8 S.W.2d 29 (Supreme Court of Missouri, 1928)
State v. Carey
278 S.W. 719 (Supreme Court of Missouri, 1925)
State v. Lee
259 S.W. 798 (Supreme Court of Missouri, 1924)
State v. Sykes
225 S.W. 904 (Supreme Court of Missouri, 1920)
State v. Anderson
158 S.W. 817 (Supreme Court of Missouri, 1913)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
157 S.W. 344, 250 Mo. 293, 1913 Mo. LEXIS 149, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-lawhorn-mo-1913.