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131 Ala. 46

Bray v. State

Supreme Court of Alabama

Decided November 15, 1901

Supreme Court of Alabama · decided 1901-11-15

Tried before the Hon. A. A. Coleman. The appellant in this case, Oliver Bray, was indicted and tried and convicted for an assault with intent to rape one Ida Andrews, and was sentenced to the penitentiary for five years. Upon the examination of prosecutrix, Ida Andrews, she testified to the details of the assault committed upon her and that said assault was made in the woods a short distance from the house of the defendant.

Relies on Barnett v. State · Griffin v. State · Barnes v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1901-11-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 17 later decisions — most recently April 1977

17 state decisions

5019011910192019301940195019601970decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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SHARPE, J.

¶1Where in prosecutions for rape the woman assaulted has testified to the commission of the offense the State may, in corroboration of her testimony as to the main fact, prove also that recently after the outrage she made complaint to those to whom complaint of such occurrence would naturally be made. On direct examination such testimony is confined to the bare fact of complaint; and details of the occurrence, including the identity of the person accused, are not proper subjects of inquiry. In such case, the State is not privileged to prove that the woman complained that any particular person assaulted her until after the defendant has brought out particulars of the complaint, or has introduced evidence tending to impeach the witnéss who testifies to the complaint. Barnett v. State, 83 Ala. 40; Griffin v. State, 76 Ala. 29; Barnes v. State, 88 Ala. 204; 3 Green. Ev., § 213.

¶2In the present case this rule was violated by the court’s action in overruling defendant’s objection to the question addressed to the prosecutrix as to whether she told any one other than Mrs. Bray what the defendant had done to her. The affirmative answer elicited by the question was calculated to prejudice the defendant’s case and the error of its admission requires a reversal of the judgment.

¶3Reversed and remanded.

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