Case ID: sw_205/html/0661-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "DAVIDSON, P. J. MORROW, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

LLOYD v. STATE.
    (No. 4577.)
    (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.
    Feb. 13, 1918.)
    Criminal Law <@=1169(1) — Admission ox Evidence — Relevancy— Reversible Error.
    In prosecution for rape upon girl under 15 where intercourse was clearly proven, and there was no issue as to her previous character or age, the admission of irrelevant evidence as to defendant’s disgusting familiarity, in view of verdict awarding defendant 35 years, the minimum being 5, was reversible error.
    Prendergast, J., dissenting.
    Appeal from District Court, Tarrant County; E. O. MeKinsey, Special Judge.
    Ered Lloyd was convicted of rape on a female under 15, and lie appeals.
    Reversed and remanded.
    Graves & Houtchens, of Ft. Worth, for appellant. E. B. Hendricks, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
   DAVIDSON, P. J.

Appellant was convicted of rape on a girl under 15 years of age, and was awarded 35 years’ confinement in the penitentiary.

It is unnecessary to make a detailed statement of the facts. The state beyond any question proved that appellant had intercourse with the girl on several occasions at their rooms in a rooming house in the city of Ft. Worth. He had induced the parents of the child, who lived in Dallas, to let him have the girl to train her “for the stage,” she having a great desire for that avocation. He took her to Ft. Worth for the purpose of training her for the stage, especially singing and dancing. After being in Ft. Worth a short time he began sleeping with the girl. There was no contest of the state’s case, and there was no issue raised as to the facts and circumstances attending the various acts of intercourse. No objection was interposed to the various times and occasions of their intercourse, nor any question raised, or sought to be raised, as to the previous character of the girl for lewdness or anything of that sort; and in fact the evidence rather tends to exclude that she was lewd and unchaste. She seems to have objected a little the first time they had intercourse, but after that seemed to interpose no objection. On the night of appellant’s arrest two officers of the humane or some other society went to his room, and through a keyhole or hole made in the door observed the conduct of the two in appellant’s room. Her room joined his. She was naked except a cloth around her private parts, and his conduct was lascivious and disgusting in the extreme. What the officers saw through this hole and over the transom, as to his conduct towards her and her conduct, was permitted to go to the jury in detail and at length. Various objections were urged to these indecent acts of familiarity as having no bearing upon the case, irrelevant, and prejudicial. It is thought not necessary and not best to repeat the account given of this lascivious conduct. It would serve no purpose, and not necessary to perpetuate in the judicial history of the state. It is contended that this was injurious to appellant. There was no question about the intercourse between them. There was no question of her age. It was not denied that he had intercourse with her, and therefore these acts of lascivious conduct and familiarity could tend to prove no issue. We are inclined to believe this contention is correct. Had there been a contest over the fact of his having intercourse with her, these might have tended to support the state’s case. There was, however, no fact it tended to elucidate, and had a serious bearing adversely to defendant. If error is committed, and it would tend to bring about a conviction, when but for such error there might be an opportunity for acquittal, such error would be reversible. Another proposition is that, conceding the guilt of an accused, if testimony erroneously admitted tending to enhance the punishment above the minimum fixed by law, the error would be equally reversible. Just what effect the introduction of this testimony had upon the jury would be difficult to tell, but it is a fact that appellant received 35 years in the penitentiary, when he might have received less had this testimony been excluded; 5 years being the minimum punishment. This illegal testimony may have assisted, and doubtless did aid, in bringing about this heavy punishment. But in any event we think it was error to admit it, and, having been awarded this high punishment, we are of opinion that the error is of such a nature that this judgment ought to be reversed, and it is accordingly so ordered.

The judgment is reversed, and the cause remanded.

MORROW, J.

(concurring). At the time the evidence, which in the court’s qualification of the bill of exception is described as “disgusting familiarity,” was admitted, the proof was abundant that the girl was under 15 years of age, that she was not the wife of appellant, and that he had had sexual intercourse with her. There was no denial of these facts, and certainly no rebutting evidence of facts detailed in the evidence of the state 'or the cross-examination or suggested therein which raised a doubt or controversy as to the fact of the intercourse.

It was held in the Battles Case, 63 Tex. Cr. R. 149, 140 S. W. 783, that in cases of this character acts of familiarity are admissible not only prior, but subsequent, to the commission of the offense. The reason for receiving them, as there given, as we understand the decision, is that they bear upon the probability that the act involved in the transaction was in fact done. In the Battles Case and the cases therein discussed there was a denial of the fact of intercourse. It was a controverted issue. At the time of the decision of the Battles Case it had not been previously decided that such testimony was receivable under an indictment for rape, but by analogy with cases of incest and adultery in which such testimony had been held admissible the doctrine was extended to cases of statutory rape, with the qualification, however, that it was to be received only as tending to solve a controverted issue.

In this case it was not admitted upon a controverted issue. The only issue upon which it could have borne was that of sexual intercourse, which was abundantly proved, and not controverted. It could have been used by the jury for no purpose other than to inflame their minds against appellant. Viewed in the light of the verdict, it is probable that it did so.

PRENDERGAST, J., dissents. 
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