Harden v. State

McMurray, Presiding Judge.

Defendant was indicted and tried for rape and aggravated battery. He was acquitted of the rape charge but found guilty of aggravated battery. The trial court sentenced him to twenty years.

The theory of the state’s case was that defendant threatened the victim with a knife by cutting the string off her blouse and then he beat and raped her. The defense’s version was that defendant struck the woman as she pulled a knife on his mother and that he did not sexually molest the woman. The jury by its verdict evinces a belief in the state’s version of the aggravated battery…