Lamb v. State

Stone, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. ,In this case the defendant Lamb, was indicted in the Circuit Court for Baltimore County for attempting to procure a miscarriage and abortion upon a certain Rachel A. Taylor. There are two counts in the indictment. The first count charges the defendant with knowingly and wilfully furnishing to Rachel A. Taylor, a pregnant woman, certain drugs and medicines for the purpose of producing an abortion. The second count charges the defendant with advising and soliciting Rachel A. Taylor to take certain drugs and medicines for the purpose of producing an abortion.

A general demurrer was filed by the accused to the indictment, which was overruled, and he then pleaded not guilty, and the case was tried before the Court. At the trial the defendant reserved two exceptions to the admissibility of evidence offered by the State, and admitted by the Court below, and these exceptions are properly before this Court. In the first exception after the State had proved by the witness Taylor, that the defendant had furnished her with some pills and drops, and advised her to take them, saying, that they would destroy the child with which she was then pregnant, the State then asked the witness the following question: ²⁸⁷ “ Did Lamb (the accused) ever propose any other means to you, other than the taking of this medicine for the purpose of producing the abortion ?” . To this question the witness replied in substance, that the accused took her, the witness, to the office of a doctor in Baltimore, and told her she must go through an operation to destroy the unborn child, but the witness refused to submit to such operation.

To this question and answer the defendant objected, but the Court overruled the objection and permitted the question to be asked and answered, and the defendant excepted. The gravamen of the offence charged against the accused was the purpose and intention of the accused to produce an abortion upon the body of Rachel A. Taylor, and he is charged in the indictment with endeavoring to effect that purpose by furnishing her with drugs, and advising her to take them.- Any declaration or acts of the defendant tending to show his intention and purpose to produce"such abortion are admissible', whether such acts and declarations were prior or subsequent to the particular act charged in the indictment. That he made a subsequent attempt to accomplish the same purpose by a different means, is admissible to show with what purpose and intent he made the attempt charged in the indictment, as well as to corroborate the evidence of the first attempt. In the case of Rex vs. Ellis, 6 B. & C., 145, the prisoner, a shopman, was indicted for robbing his employer’s money drawer of a particular sum of money on a particular day; at the trial evidence was admitted that the prisoner had robbed the drawer at other times.

Upon review the Court, Bayley, J., delivering the opinion, said: “ Generally speaking, it is not competent to a prosecutor to prove a man guilty of one felony, by proving him guilty of another unconnected felony; but where several felonies are connected together, and form part of one entire ²⁸⁸ transaction, then the one is evidence to show the character of the other.” Holhoyd, J., said in the same case : “Upon an indictment for robbing the prosecutor of a coat, the robbery having been committed by the prisoner’s threatening to charge the prosecutor with an unnatural crime, I received evidence of a