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People v. Spriggs

21 N.Y. Crim. 180 Court SUPREME COURT—APP. DIVISION—FIRST DEPARTMENT, Decision date 1907-05-24 English

Delivered by Lambert, J.:

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p. 180
SUPREME COURT—APP. DIVISION—FIRST DEPARTMENT,
May 24, 1907.
THE PEOPLE v. ROBERT H. SPRIGGS.
(119 App. Div. 236.)

Headnote

Abduction of Female—Evidence of Intent.
As intent is an essential element to crime it is competent to show conduct on the part of the defendant tending to establish motive, which may be done by evidence of conduct previous to the time alleged in the indictment, tending to show that he had intention to make use of the complainant for purposes prohibited by the statute.
Appeal by the defendant Robert II. Spriggs, from a judgment of the Court of General Sessions of the Peace in and for the county of New York, rendered on the 27th day of March, 1906, convicting the defendant of the crime of abduction, and also from an order denying the defendant’s motion for a new trial.
Townsend & Kiefer, for the appellant.
E. Grosby Kindleberger, for the respondent.

The defendant was indicted for the crime of abduction, charged as a second offense, and has been sentenced to twenty years in the State prison upon his conviction. The evidence shows that the defendant had been previously convicted of the crime of assault in the second degree, and had served a term in a State prison, from which he had been pardoned. He is charged in the indictment with having on the 15th day of June, 1905, feloniously and unlawfully taken and detained against her will a certain female, one Hattie Warren, with intent to compel her by force, menace and duress then and there to be

p. 181
defiled, against the form of the statute[1] in such case made and provided, etc. The chief witness of the prosecution was the said Hattie Warren, and the evidence discloses a state of facts which fully justified the jury in finding the defendant guilty as charged. An examination of the record upon the trial discloses no reversible error. The evidence of Hattie Warren, the victim of the abduction, is fully corroborated in its essential details by other witnesses, and there is no reason apparent why this conviction ought not to stand. The intent of the acts of the defendant constituted an essential element of the crime, and under the authorities it is competent to show conduct on his part tending to establish such motive. The rule is stated by Greenleaf on Evidence (Vol. 3 [16th ed.], § 15) that in proof of intention it is not always necessary that the evidence should apply directly to the particular act with the commission of which the party is charged, for the unlawful intent in the particular case may well be inferred from similar intent proved to have existed in other transactions done before or after that time (See Mayer v. Peo ple, 80 N. Y. 364 .) It seems clear, therefore, that the admission of evidence of the defendant’s conduct previous to the time alleged in the indictment, tending to show that he had the intention of making use of this female for the purposes prohibited by the statute[1] was not error.

The judgment of conviction and the order denying a new trial should be affirmed.

Patterson, P. J., Ingraham, McLaughlin and Clarke, JJ., concurred.

Judgment and order affirmed.

* Penal Code, § 282.—[Rep.

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