Benstine v. State

The prisoner has been convicted in the' criminal court of Shelby county, of the crime of rape upon Annie Dugan. The jury decline to commute the punishment. A new trial was moved for and refused, and the judgment of death pronounced, from which the prisoner has appealed in error.

The age of Annie Dugan is not shown, but from various circumstances appearing in the record, it is clearly to be inferred that she was quite young. She had been an inmate of an orphan asylum, and from thence came to the house of the Defendant in the city of Memphis, and remained there as a servant some fourteen months,…