Richardson v. State

Citations

• 100 Miss. 514
• 56 So. 454

Syllabus

<p>1. Criminal Law. Rape. Female under the age of consent. Previous chaste character. Evidence.</p> <p>While in a prosecution for rape on a female under the age of twelve years, evidence of previous unchaste character is ordinarily immaterial, in some cases such evidence may be very material.</p> <p>2. Same.</p> <p>Where in a prosecution for rape on a female under twelve years of age there was practically no corroborative testimony except that her hymen had been ruptured. A physician testified that he examined her on the day of the alleged crime, that her vaginal orifice was abnormally large and the hymen obliterated, that there was no indication of any intercourse with her that day, that she was not bruised, and that it would have been impossible for a man with a normal sized sexual organ to have had intercourse with her without bruising her. It was reversible error in the court to exclude testimony offered by the defendant that the girl had had sexual intercourse with men prior to the date of the commission of the alleged crime.</p>