People v. Lenon

California Supreme Court Jul 5, 1889 No. No. 20516Published

Before: McFarland

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Holding. The court held that testimony regarding a defendant's prior cruel treatment of a child victim is admissible to corroborate the victim's testimony regarding fear, and that a defendant cannot object to the prosecution explaining evidence of prior offenses that the defendant allowed to remain in the record. The court further held that refusing a requested instruction on reasonable doubt is not error when the jury has been adequately instructed on the burden of proof.

Issues

Whether testimony regarding a defendant's prior cruel treatment of a child victim is admissible to corroborate the victim's testimony.
Whether the prosecution may elicit testimony explaining the circumstances of prior offenses when the defendant failed to object to the initial introduction of those offenses.
Whether the trial court erred in refusing a requested instruction on reasonable doubt that contained imprecise language.

Disposition. affirmed

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“The testimony of Mrs. Stevens was admitted by the court expressly upon the ground—and upon no other ground—of corroborating the statement of the prosecuting witness as to cruel treatment and fear, and we think that for this purpose it was properly admitted.”

Synopsis

Criminal Law—Rape—Evidence—Corroboration of Prosecuting - Witness — Cruel Treatment. — When a step-father is accused of rape, committed upon his step-daughter between ten and eleven years of age, if the step-daughter testifies that defendant was in the habit of cruelly beating her, and thus keeping her in constant fear and terror, under which she submitted to him, the testimony of a neighbor that she heard the step-father whipping and beating the prosecuting witness is admissible in corroboration of her statement as to cruel treatment and fear. The fact that the beating testified to by the neighbor occurred a year before the alleged rape goes only to the weight and not to the admissibility of the testimony.

Id. —Proof of Prior Offense—Explanatory Evidence. —Though as a general rule the prosecution cannot prove the commission of another offense to raise an inference of guilt of the crime charged, yet where, upon a charge of rape, the prosecuting witness voluntarily, and without objection on the part of the defendant, testifies incidentally to prior intercourse with her by the defendant without her consent, it is not error to allow the witness to testify, in answer to questions from the prosecution, that on the former occasions she was overcome by fear and terror, and did not tell her mother because she was scared, and afraid that defendant would kill her mother.

Id.—Instructions —Reasonable Doubt.—When the court gives sufficient instructions to the jury upon the subject of reasonable doubt, it is not error to refuse further instructions upon the same subject at the request of the defendant. An instruction that “it would not be sufficient to justify a conviction, if the jury should be satisfied of the guilt of the defendant to such a moral certainty as would influence their minds in the important affairs of life,” should be refused as lacking in precision, and as being so unguarded as to produce a bewildering impression.

McFarland, J. —The defendant was charged with and convicted of the crime of rape, and he appeals from the judgment. Appellant contends that the court below erred in allowing the testimony of Mrs. Amanda Stevens, to the effect that, living in a house next and close to that of defendant, she heard him whipping and beating the prosecuting witness. The prosecuting witness, upon whom the alleged crime is charged to have been committed, was a young girl between ten and eleven years old, and lived with the defendant, who was her stepfather. She testified that defendant was in the habit oi cruelly beating her, and thus keeping her in constant fear and terror, and that she submitted to him under [627]circumstances which, without such fear and terror, might have indicated consent (if, indeed, consent of such a child could have been found by the jury at all). The testimony of Mrs. Stevens was admitted by the court expressly upon the ground—and upon no other ground—of corroborating the statement of the prosecuting witness as to cruel treatment and fear, and we think that for this purpose it was properly admitted. (2 Bishop’s Grim. L., secs. 1124, 1125; Regina v. Jones, 4 L. T., N. S., 154.) What is said in People v. Tyler, 36 Cal. 522, does not apply to the case at bar, where the party injured was a mere child under the defendant’s control, and where the main question was, whether or not she was influenced by fear to make less resistance than should have appeared under other circumstances. The fact that the beating to which Mrs. Stevens testified the most positively happened about a year before the alleged rape goes only to the weight and not to the admissibility of the testimony.

2. During the examination in chief of the prosecuting witness, she voluntarily, and not in response to a question asked by the prosecution, made a remark indicating that the defendant had, or attempted to have, intercourse with her on occasions prior to the time alleged in the information. The district attorney then asked: “Do you mean to say that he- has done these things before?” To which question she answered that he had, twice before. The district attorney then asked her if on these occasions she had consented to his doing it, and she answered that she had not. Up to this point no objection was made to the testimony by the defendant. The district attorney then asked the witness: “How came he to do it on these two former occasions?” and “Why didn’t you tell your mother?” Defendant objected to these questions as irrelevant, incompetent, and immaterial. The court overruled the objections, and defendant excepted, and he contends that this ruling

People v. Lenon

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