Bean v. People

Citations

• 124 Ill. 576
• 16 N.E. 656
• 1888 Ill. LEXIS 1001

Syllabus

<p>1. Cbiminaii law—prosecution for rape—evidence■—of the complaint filed, as showing a different time. On the trial of one for rape; the prosecutrix testified that the rape was committed on the evening of May 19. The defendant offered in evidence the complaint of her brother, who was not a witness, made on May 28, alleging the offense to have been committed on that day, which, on objection, the court refused, to admit: Held, that the ruling of the court was proper.</p> <p>2. Same—statements as to the date of another transaction. On the same trial, for an alleged rape on May 19, the defendant offered to prove that on May 23 a brother of the prosecutrix proposed the name of the accused for leader of a band, of which they were members, which the court excluded: Held, that the evidence was not competent, except to impeach the testimony of the brother in case a proper foundation had been laid.</p> <p>3. Same—complaint by the prosecutrix to her family, of the alleged rape—of proof thereof. The fact that the prosecuting witness, immediately after the alleged rape, made complaint to her father, may be shown to sustain her testimony that she did make such complaint, but not as to the fact who committed the rape. It would be proper, in such case, to instruct the jury, that her telling her father of the assault was a circumstance tending to sustain the truth of her statement on the trial that such an assault was made.</p> <p>4. On a trial for rape, the court instructed the jury, that if they believed, from the evidence, that the prosecuting witness told her father of the assault alleged to have been made on her, at the earliest opportunity, then that was a corroborating circumstance, tending to sustain the truth of her statements: Held, that while the instruction was, strictly, too broad, in its use of the term “statements,” there was no substantial error in it, and that it was not open to the charge of singling out a part of the facts, and thereby giving them undue prominenc