Court Opinion

ID: 9670479
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:21:29.317025+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:04.982992
License: Public Domain

Lee, J.,
dissenting
The charge in this case was a serious one. If the defendant is guilty he assuredly deserves the penalty which was imposed. But, under our jurisprudence, only admissible evidence can be introduced to establish guilt.
In the case of Ashford v. State, 81 Miss. 414, 33 So. 174, in 1902, in a rape case, this Court said: “A complaint of a crime upon one made by the injured person is admitted as original evidence only in the case of rape. * * * But it can be shown only that she made complaint of the wrong, without more. The particulars may not be stated. Nor can it be shown upon whom she charged the perpetration of the wrong.”
In Anderson v. State, 82 Miss. 784, 35 So. 202, in 1903, a similar case, this Court, citing the Ashford case, supra, said: “Ordinarily any and all statements made by a party assaulted after the commission of the crime is hearsay, and not admissible. An exception is made in the case of rape alone, but even in that case no statements made by the prosecutrix are admissible except her complaint that she had been ravished. The details of the transaction, the name of the party accused, the place where it is said to have occurred, the time of the alleged *119offense, cannot be proven by a repetition of the words of the prosecutrix. The exception in cases of rape is made upon the idea that outraged virtue will proclaim her wrong, and therefore silence might he considered as raising a suspicion of consent.” (Emphasis supplied).
In Redding v. State, 211 Miss. 851, 53 So. 2d 7, in 1951, also a rape case, the opinion cited both the Ash-ford and the Anderson cases, supra, with approval, and repeated the exact language of the Anderson case as underscored above. See also Frost v. State, 100 Miss. 796, 57 So. 221; Clark v. State, 124 Miss. 841, 87 So. 286; Lewis v. State, 183 Miss. 192, 184 So. 53.
Fairley v. State, (Miss.) 83 So. 2d 278, in 1955, was reversed and remanded because the witness was permitted to testify that the prosecutrix told him that Fairley, her father, raped her. The opinion was documented by the citation of all of the above cases.
When Mr. and Mrs. Leggett were permitted to testify, as set out in the majority opinion, namely, that the prosecutrix complained that she had been raped the night before at home, I think this was just as effective to brand the defendant as the assailant as if she had said “Papa raped me”. In my opinion, the evidence of these two witnesses was inadmissible. It was certainly very prejudicial, and this error, in my opinion, necessitates a reversal of the case.
Boberds and Arrington, JJ., join in this dissent.