3 Park. Cr. 391 | N.Y. Sup. Ct. | 1857
The defendant was tried at the Court of Oyer and Terminer held in the county of Kings on an indictment against him and another for a rape upon Catharine Sullivan. The trial occupied eight days, and resulted in his conviction. The complainant was asked, on her cross-examination by the counsel for the accused, whether upon her passage from Liverpool to New-York, previous to the alleged outrage, she had illicit sexual intercourse with a fellow passenger, to which she answered unhesitatingly that she had not. Subsequently the counsel for the accused offered to prove by another witness particular acts of such illicit sexual intercourse between the complainant and the same passenger during such voyage. The district attorney objected to the admission of the proposed evidence ; and the
Although the prosecutrix in such cases is the person aggrieved, yet she is upon the trial simply a witness between the people and the accused, and the rules of evidence relative to ordinary witnesses are, with two exceptions resulting from the peculiarity of the complaint, which I shall presently notice, applicable to her. Generally the conduct of a witness in matters disconnected from the subject of the trial, being irrelevant, cannot be given in evidence. The objections to admitting such evidence are, that it raises collateral issues, and that the party against whom it may be offered would generally be taken by surprise, and not be prepared to meet it. It is very desirable that the inquiries upon a trial should be confined to the issues actually joined between the parties. They attend to try those only; the attention of the jury is or should be exclusively directed to them, and not diverted to other and irrelevant matters which have a tendency to confuse their minds, and an investigation into collateral matters would protract issues into inconvenient and intolerable length. The issues in civil cases, owing to modern innovations, are very numerous in most instances, and ought not to be increased by a relaxation of the rules of evidence. The system of special pleading which has been recently almost practically abolished, was admirably adapted to raise, and to confine the parties to a few specific and necessary issues. The consequence of the abandonment of that system in civil cases has been that legal investigations have become very burdensome to courts and juries, and there are
If there should be anything to require the rejection of the proposed evidence, or to diminish the force of what is actually adduced, it may be proved, provided it does not raise or tender a collateral issue. Thus it may be proved that a proposed witness has been convicted of an infamous offence • by producing the record. That raises no collateral issue of fact, as the record is conclusive, and there can be no further inquiry. But it is not competent to prove that the witness has in fact committed a crime if he has not been convicted, although the actual perpetration of the crime is what renders him unworthy of belief. That, if permitted, might raise a collateral issue for trial. So, too, a witness may be asked if he has not perpetrated some offence, or been guilty of some moral obliquity, which would if true impair the weight of his evidence. He may indeed refuse to answer whether he has been guilty of an act which would render him liable to an indictment or a prosecution for a penalty, or of any act disconnected with the main transaction which would have a tendency to degrade him. But he may confess either, at his option, and the evidence would be admissible. That would not, however, raise any issue for trial, as whatsoever his answer might be the party asking the question could not controvert it. A witness may also be asked whether he has previously made a varied or conflicting statement as to some material fact, and should he deny that, he might be contradicted. That would, however, have reference to a direct rather than a collateral issue. As to any discrepant statements of the witness in reference to matters foreign to the issue on trial,
There can be no doubt but that, in ordinary cases, an inquiry, addressed to any other than the assailed witness, as to any particular act derogatory to his character, or as to any specific blemish in his reputation, should be excluded. It was contended on the argument, however, that the rule had been relaxed in reference to the testimony of the prosecution in trials for rape, and in such cases the door had been opened sufficiently wide to admit the evidence offered and rejected in the court below. It is certainly right that the testimony of the female preferring the complaint should be subjected to the strictest scrutiny compatible with the due ■ administration of justice; she is a necessary and generally the sole witness of the transaction. Experience has shown that the charge is frequently unfounded and instituted from impure motives. It is hard to meet the testimony of a cunning and unprincipled woman in reference to what is alleged to have taken place in the presence only of herself and of the accused, whose mouth is of course closed. It is therefore deemed essential that the charge should be supported by attending considerations or circumstances, such as that the witness is of good fame; that she presently disclosed the offence and made exertions for the detection and prosecution of the offender; that she exhibited marks and signs of the injury, and that the alleged outrage was perpetrated in a private or secluded place. It is absolutely necessary to the constitution of the offence that the outraged female should have resisted to the extent of her power until the. crime was consummated, unless such resistance was prevented by threats and intimidation. As the complainants more frequently pervert the truth and are harder to be met in reference to this particular than as to any other allegation, courts have very properly allowed to the defendants considerable latitude in proving contradictory circumstances.
Mr. Greenleaf, in his valuable work on evidence (3 Greenlf. Ev., § 314), says : “The character of a prosecutrix, on a trial for rape, for chastity may also be impeached, but this must be done by general evidence of her reputation in that respect. Starkie (Stark. Ev., part 4, 1269) says: “The charscter of the prosecutrix for chastity may be impeached by general evidence; but evidence of particular facts for this purpose is inadmissible.” Phillips, in his work on evi
As the proffered evidence in this case was properly rejected, the motion for a new trial must be denied, and the record must be remitted to the Court of Oyer and Terminer, with instructions to sentence the defendant conform-ably to his conviction.
Proceedings affirmed.