People v. Higgins

CRAIL, P. J.

The defendant Higgins was convicted of (forcible) rape and assault. The defendant Albert Jackson

[597]

was convicted of rape.. Each of the defendants appeal from the judgment against him.

Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, Mrs. Dorothy Frakes, the prosecutrix, was a married woman, twenty-three years of age, and lived with her husband and infant daughter. She testified that at about 1:30 A. M. on May 17, 1935, following an argument with her husband, she left her home with the intention of visiting a girl friend who worked at the Chicago Cafe on Fifth Street near Los Angeles Street.

While waiting for a street car a former gentleman friend of the prosecutrix passed by in his automobile, stopped and took her to Fifth and Los Angeles Streets.

As she walked toward the Chicago Cafe, which she then noticed was closed, she testified that a large sedan drove up to the curb adjacent to where she was walking and a voice called, “Get in, she is waiting”, (this in spite of the fact that she had sent no word to her girl friend and she could not have been waiting) ; that as she

started to get in

she noticed that the two occupants were negroes. She started to step back but defendant Higgins took hold of her arm and pulled her into the car. She made no outcry. She was placed in the front seat between the two men and told to keep her mouth shut. This ear was driven on various city streets for some time and finally to a store building where defendant Higgins got some money to buy whiskey. They then drove around some more, stopping at several homes trying to buy liquor. After buying some whiskey they drove to Higgins’ home, a rear house, drove into the alley and put the car in a garage. All three got out and entered the house. Defendant Higgins was preparing to move and there were no lights in the house, so a coal oil lamp was lighted. All sat down in a bedroom, the prosecutrix being seated on the bed, and the bottle was passed around. Mrs. Frakes testified that she took only a swallow. The prosecutrix says that after sitting there awhile defendant Jackson told her to take her clothes off, but that she refused. She was wearing a red dress, .underskirt, step-ins and slippers. On her refusal, she testified, Jackson jerked off her dress and underskirt, but that when he tried to take off her underwear she held on and he shoved her over on the bed and “He tried to take it away from me . . . ”, and she proceeds with details of the alleged