Fraysier

The defendant was convicted of the crime of statutory rape. This appeal is from that judgment and from an order denying his motion for a new trial.

The defendant was a gardener making his living by growing and selling vegetables in San Francisco. His garden lay in the center of a city block shut in by fences and dwellings. Into that somewhat secluded place customers often sent their children to buy vegetables. Without elaborating the revolting details it will suffice to say that according to the testimony of the prosecutrix, a girl twelve years of age, she went to the defendant’s garden one day in September, 1916, and was there ravished by the defendant. As is unfortunately often the case in prosecutions of this character, the testimony relied upon by the state is not as satisfactory as might be desired. This perhaps is inevitable. The prosecution was unable to fix the time of the day, whether in the forenoon or afternoon, nor the day of the week nor the date on which the assault occurred nearer than that it was some time three or four weeks before Labor Day. The prosecutrix testified that immediately after the assault she went home but said nothing to her mother about the…