20 S.D. 612 | S.D. | 1906
Of the crime of incest, committed upon the person of his own daughter, plaintiff in error was found guilty as •charged in the information and adjudged to serve a term of seven years in the Penitentiary at Sioux Falls. The inference is fairly sustained by the record that after the-preliminary examination and before the trial a scheme was devised by certain members of the family to prevent the state from proving its case and leading questions propounded by leave of court to the witness, Theresa Mun-gecn, one of the daughters of the accused called on behalf of the prosecution, resulted as follows: “Q.‘ Now, Theresa, didn’t you make the statement, at the time your father was arrested, that your father had been in the bedroom several times out at your home on the farm with Amelia? A. Yes, sir. Q. Then you have seen your father and Amelia going in and coming out of the bedroom together, at home on the farm, have you not, a good many times? A. No, sir. Q. You made the statement, at the time your father was arrested, that you have seen them, and seen your father come in the bedroom and pull Amelia out of bed and take her out in the other room? A. I said I saw him pull her out of bed, but I did not say he brought her out in the other room. Q. You say you saw him come in the bedroom and pull her out of bed? A. Yes, sir. Q. You made a statement at the time your father was arrested that your father not only slept with Amelia, but with all the girls out on the farm? A. Yes sir. Q. Didn’t you make the statement at the time he was arrested that he had been sleeping with Amelia nearly all of the time, or a good many times? A. No sir. Q. Didn’t you come to my office, here at Milbank, ancl state to me that you were willing to testify in court in this case, and that you made the statement that your father was the father of Amelia’s child ? A. No, sir. Q. Didn’t you also state to me a few days later that j'ou had changed }rour mind and was not going to come into court and that Amelia had got into all this trouble, and that she could get you out? A. Yes, sir. Q. After you were put in jail here
Whenever the testimony sought to be elicited may tend to subject- a witness to criminal liability, he has the constitutional right to refuse to answer upon that ground, and, though the priv
AVhile her testimony is confessedly explicit as to all the facts and circumstances of ' the crime, and shows on the part of the father a most culpable course of conduct toward his daughter, counsel for the defense urges a reversal on the ground that she is not corroborated by such other evidence as tends to connect .the accused with the commission of the offense. ' Mr. H. S. Volkinár,
The accused, testifying in his own behalf, made no attempt to explain any of the significant circumstances disclosed by the record, or to excuse his silence at the time when the prosecuting witness made the statement that he was the father of her child. Therefore, such statement stands as a tacit admission on his part, which, with the other facts and circumstances, sufficiéntly corroborates the correct and positive testimony of Amelia.
Finding no reversible error in the record, the judgment of conviction is affirmed.