80 Neb. 91 | Neb. | 1907
Tlie defendant below was convicted of the crime of incest, and has brought the case here by petition in error.
The information contained three counts. The first charged the defendant with what is commonly called statutory rape; the second count contained a charge of rape as defined by the common law, with an additional allegation that the victim was the defendant’s daughter; while the third count charged him with the crime of incest as defined by section 203 of the criminal code. The defendant filed a motion to quash the information for duplicity. The state thereupon elected to proceed to trial upon the third count alone, and the motion was therefore overruled. The jury returned a verdict of “guilty, as charged in the information,” and the defendant assigns error for that the verdict does not respond to the count of the information on which the prosecution elected to go to trial. It is insisted, under the rule announced in Williams v. State, 6 Neb. 334, that, where there are distinct offenses charged in different counts of the information, as in the case at bar, the jury must either return a general verdict of not guilty, or respond specially to each charge in the information. Since the decision in Ford v. State, 79 Neb. 309, the above rule has been abrogated in this state, for Williams v. State, supra, and Casey v. State, 20 Neb. 138, were expressly
It is iíext contended that the trial court erred in overruling defendant’s challenge of the juror Meyer for cause. It appears that Meyer had read the neAVspaper accounts of the transaction, and for that reason alone had an impression or opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the defendant, which he said would require some evidence to remove*. The juror further stated that the fact that any one was accused of having committed so heinous a crime would, to a certain extent, create in his mind a prejudice against him. However, in response to questions propounded by the court, the juror clearly stated that his impression or opinion was founded solely on newspaper accounts, and, if retained as a juror, his impression so formed would not interfere with his rendering a fair and impartial verdict upon the evidence and the instructions of the court. It seems clear, therefore, that the juror brought himself within the rule announced in Bohanan v. State, 18 Neb. 57, Basye v. State, 45 Neb. 261, 277, Bolln v. State, 51 Neb. 581, and Barker v. State, 73 Neb. 469. The challenge, therefore*, was properly overruled.
It is further contended that the court erred in giving the first and second paragraphs of his instructions, for the reason that they treated the information and all of its
Complaint is also made of the giving of the seventh instruction, which treats of the necessity for corroboration. An examination of the instruction shows that the jury were clearly informed that they could not convict the defendant upon the uncorroborated evidence of the prosecutrix, and this statement was followed by a definition of that term which has been many times ajjproved by this court.
Defendant further insists that the court erred in refusing to give the tenth instruction tendered by him, in modifying it, and finally giving it as modified. It appears that when accused of his misconduct by the prosecutrix and her grandmother, to whom she first related her story, the defendant fled to another state. Later on he returned to Nebraska, bxit not to his former home, and was finally arrested in a county other than that of his residence. The instruction on that point, as tendered by him, contained the following: “You may look on it as evidence of fear, or of summary punishment at the hands of his accusers.’’ The words quoted were stricken from the instruction by the court, and as thus modified the charge was left in the form usually given in such cases. The record contained-no evidence showing, or tending to show, that there was any excitement in the community where the defendant lived on account of the charge made against him, or that his accusers ever threatened him with any summary punishment whatsoever. Therefore the court properly modified the request, and did not err in giving it in its modified form.
A careful examination of the-record fails to disclose any reversible error, and the judgment of the district court is
AFFIRMED.