Title: State of Oregon v. Goguen
Citation: 196 Or. 586, 250 P.2d 924
Docket Number: N/A
State: Oregon
Issuer: Oregon Supreme Court
Date: November 26, 1952

Affirmed November 26, 1952.
George H. Brewster, of Redmond, argued the cause for appellant. With him on the brief was James Bodie, of Prineville.
E.D. Harris, District Attorney, of Madras, argued the cause and filed a brief for respondent.
Before BRAND, Chief Justice, and ROSSMAN, LUSK, LATOURETTE and WARNER, Justices.
AFFIRMED.
*587 ROSSMAN, J.
This is an appeal by the defendant from a judgment of the circuit court, based upon a verdict, which adjudged him guilty of the crime of rape upon the daughter of his wife. The indictment charged, and the evidence showed, that the purported victim was under the age of 16 years. The indictment was based upon §§ 23-420 and 23-421, OCLA.
The defendant's brief submits two assignments of error. The first follows:
The second is phrased in these words:
Exhibit A is a book, in paper binding, 188 pages in length. The pages are four by seven inches in size. As a witness, the defendant described it as sexy, filthy literature, and claimed that he had found it in the possession of his wife's daughter, of whom we will speak as the prosecuting witness. The latter denied that she had read or possessed the book.
*588 The defendant makes no contention that the state's evidence is insufficient to justify the verdict. We shall now consider the assignments of error.
At the beginning of the trial, defendant's counsel made no opening statement, but before the examination of the witnesses had progressed far he stated, in reply to an inquiry from the bench, "We want to show a frame up, as I am going to call it." Similar declarations were later made. After the state had rested, defendant's counsel, in outlining the defense which he was about to present, said:
From the foregoing, it is seen that the instruction which is challenged by the first assignment of error pertained to a defense which the defendant had announced.
The exception to the instruction that the defendant saved, which is the subject matter of the first assignment of error, as stated in the bill of exceptions, is the following:
State v. Newburn, 178 Or 238, 166 P2d 470, says:
The defendant contends that he presented evidence which had a tendency to indicate that the complaining witness possibly had had sexual intercourse with someone else, and that the part of the instruction which told the jury "the previous conduct of the girl is not a matter that enters into your consideration of this case except upon charges of frame-up and upon that alone" rendered it impossible for the jury to consider whether someone else, and not he, was responsible for the ruptured hymen.
The evidence upon which the defendant depends to sustain his contention that he showed that the prosecuting witness possibly had had intercourse with someone else can be classified as follows: (1) evidence showing that she read sexy literature, of which Exhibit A is an example; (2) evidence showing that she, in company with companions of both sexes and of about her age, went upon automobile rides and in their course visited open air theaters and dark places upon the highway where they embraced each other.
We have given the defendant's characterization of Exhibit A; he termed it filthy and sexy. We made a hurried reading of Exhibit A in an effort to acquaint ourselves with its nature. The prefix to the book describes it as "the world's most popular novel." It states that the Magistrate's Court of the City of New York and the Superior Court of Pennsylvania refused to suppress its sale. According to an advertisement which appears upon the back cover of the book, the *591 novel has been translated into twelve languages and more than six million copies of it have been sold. It and other books of its kind, similarly bound and printed, are offered for sale in large quantities in many places. Whatever may be the character of the book, it is certain that no woman ever received a ruptured hymen from reading it.
Obviously, if the evidence summarized in the preceding paragraph has no tendency to show that the prosecuting witness had had sexual intercourse with some third party, the defendant's assignments of error lack merit. The defendant has cited no authorities which intimate that evidence of the kind upon which he relies tends to prove sexual intercourse. Our examination of the precedents has disclosed those which we will now review.
In People v. Mangum, 31 Cal App2d 374, 88 P2d 207, the court, in affirming a judgment which convicted the defendant of the crime of rape by force and violence, took note of the rule that when such is the charge, proof of unchaste acts of the prosecutrix is admissible to disprove the allegation that the act was committed by force and against the will of the prosecutrix. The court held that no error was committed when objections were sustained to questions, of which the following were examples:
It said:
State v. Smailes, 51 Idaho 321, 5 P2d 540, in sustaining the conviction of the defendant upon a charge of rape of a girl less than 18 years of age, said:
In State v. Brown, 185 Minn 446, 241 NW 591, the defendant, who had been convicted of attempted rape, claimed that error was committed when evidence was excluded which he offered for the purpose of showing that the prosecuting witness, 18 years of age, lacked chastity. We take the following from the decision:
The judgment of guilt was affirmed.
In People v. Merrill, 104 Cal App 2d 257, 231 P2d 573, the court, in affirming the defendant's conviction upon a charge of rape with force and violence, said:
From Pylant v. State, 191 Ga 587, 13 SE2d 380, we take the following:
The following is taken from Ledesma v. State, 147 Tex. Cr. 37, 181 SW2d 705, which affirmed the defendant's conviction of the crime of rape:
State v. Esposito, 122 Conn 604, 191 Atl 341, in sustaining a judgment which convicted the defendant of rape, said:
In the present instance, all of the evidence offered by the defendant which had any bearing upon the chastity of the prosecuting witness was received, with the exception of Exhibit A. For the purpose of determining *596 the merits of the defendant's first assignment of error, we will assume that Exhibit A is a part of the evidence. The evidence before a jury must bear such a logical relationship to the conclusion which a party wishes the jury to draw that the conclusion becomes a reasonable one. In other words, a logical relationship must be established between the evidence presented and the fact in issue.
In the present instance, the facts are that the prosecuting witness (1) had a ruptured hymen; (2) read sexy literature; and (3) went upon automobile rides with groups of young people, in the course of which couples of the opposite sex embraced each other.
We do not believe that a logical relationship exists between fact number one and those which we have preceded with numerals 2 and 3. It may be that if facts two and three were supplemented with other relevant facts, a conclusion favorable to the defendant would be warranted. Without further analysis, we express our belief that (1) the relationship between Exhibit A and the condition of the girl was too remote to render it relevant, and (2) no logical relationship existed between the evidence presented by the defendant and the conclusion which he wished the jury to draw. It is our conclusion that the defendant's assignments of error lack merit.
The judgment of the circuit court is affirmed.