Court Opinion

ID: 9447254
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 22:29:52.731972+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:57.635485
License: Public Domain

Memorandum on Petition for Rehearing In Banc.
Filed February 16, 1960
PRETTYMAN, Chief Judge.
I do not view this case, as the petition for rehearing would have us do, as an evaluation of comparative credibility, or as an appellate redetermination of disputed issues of fact. My view is that upon the testimony of the complaining witness the Government did not make out a case of rape. This is a question of law.
Rape is a serious crime, one of the most serious; it carries a possible death sentence. It has been axiomatic from the earliest days of the common law that courts scrutinize with special caution the evidence of the prosecution in this type of case.1
First let me note some of the features of this present case often commented upon as present or absent in cases reported in the books. These facts are not determinative of the issue; they are background facts frequently mentioned by the courts. The girl was eighteen years old, full-grown in other words; not physically incapacitated in any way, not a child, not immature. The affair lasted for several hours. It took place on a public street, lighted, and in a room in an apartment house; it did not occur in an isolated spot. It did not occur in a sudden tempestuous incident. The girl did not run or attempt to run when she was accosted. She did not scream, yell, or cry out at any time; at times, she said, she was “sort of weeping like but it wasn’t loud”, “like a moaning cry”. She did not resist in any way. She took all her clothes off when he told her to do so. There was no racial difference between the parties, such as a white man and a Negro girl or a Negro man and a white girl, which circumstances often give rise to fear; both were Negroes. She did not claim the man was of unusual size or apparent strength. This was not an assault upon chastity; she had had sexual experience before these events. No physical violence of any sort was involved. She was taken at once to a hospital for an examination but was not detained there. The Government proffered no evidence of bruises or injury of any sort.
Next I look at the affirmative testimony — her testimony — as to what this man did during the time involved in the alleged offense. He walked with the girl some two or three blocks. He opened the house door and the room door and then locked the room door behind him. He laid her clothes on the couch. He took his own clothes off. They had intercourse on the bed. He went out of the room and brought a glass of water back *876to her. He poured out two little glasses of whiskey. He took the whiskey glass from her and put the glasses on the dresser. He offered her a cigarette. Some forty-five minutes after the first intercourse they had intercourse again.
Now I come to the determinative feature of the case, as I view it. The complaining witness rested her claim of fear upon a simple physical fact- — a knife. Throughout her testimony she insisted that he had a knife.2 She repeatedly said he had it in his left hand. Over and over she said he put a knife to the back of her neck. But she never saw any knife.3
As I understand the law of rape, if no force is used and the girl in fact acquiesces, the acquiescence may never- ' theless be deemed to be non-consent if it is induced by fear; but the fear, to be sufficient for this purpose, must be based upon something of substance; and furthermore the fear must be of death or severe bodily harm.4A girl cannot simply say, “I was scared,” and thus transform an apparent consent into a legal non-consent which makes the man’s act a capital offense.5 She must have a reasonable apprehension, as I understand the law, of something real; her fear must be not fanciful but substantial.6
In the case at bar there was an apparent acquiescence on the girl’s part. She said she took off all her clothes, lay down on the bed, and had intercourse twice, some forty-five minutes apart. But she said she did this because she was scared. And she was quite clear, emphatic and insistent upon the cause of her fear: The man had a knife in his hand. The reason for her fear was tangible and definite. It was a knife, and it was in his hand. She so testified repeatedly.
But she never saw any knife. Now it is perfectly apparent that, if this man had had a knife in his hand while he was doing all the things she said he did over this two or three hour period, she must have seen it. He could not have had a knife and have done all these things, with her watching him as she said she did, without her seeing the knife. As a matter of fact, at the close of the Government's testimony the trial judge struck from the record all the testimony *877concerning the knife, “leaving her testimony in that it was something that felt sharp and felt like a knife.” The judge said if there had been a knife the girl would have seen it.
But, if she would necessarily have seen a knife if the man had had one, she would necessarily have seen anything else of the size or shape of a knife. She made no claim he had any such article. Moreover she made no claim he had the knife concealed in some fashion, such as in his pocket, so that she was afraid he might have one even though he did not. In fact during most of this time he wore only a pair of shorts. Although the law of rape may be elastic enough to permit easy speculations as to what might have frightened the girl in such a case, — e. g., she thought there was a knife although there was none — the record before us does not permit of such speculations. If the man had had any weapon she would necessarily have seen it; she saw none. The law may permit conviction of rape upon the basis of a concealed knife, but it does not permit conviction premised upon an invisible knife. The rape penalty does not rest upon imaginary fears.
Upon the foregoing facts and circumstances, when the knife disappeared from the record as a possible fact, the charge of rape disappeared, as I view the matter. The only basis for fear advanced by the prosecutrix was the knife; she suggested no alternative cause for fear. The only factual substance to any of the intangible threats allegedly made by him to her was the knife. There was no force or violence and no threat or fear of force or violence except for the knife. The charge of rape rested upon the presence of the knife. The Government failed to prove a case of rape.
I see no reason for an en banc consideration of the decision of the division which heard the case.
Our dissenting brother puts much stress upon the care with which the girl turned on the water in the bathroom, tiptoed out of the house, and ran down to the firehouse, crying. These are circumstances, he posits, which corroborate the claim of rape. But this circumstantial evidence is clearly as consistent with innocence as with guilt — with a vengeful purpose after a quarrel over money as with a rape. In my view it is of little or no value as corroboration in this case.

. 1 Hale, Pleas of The Crown 635-636 (1778).

. Here are parts of her testimony: “[I]t was a knife”. “[H]e stuck a knife in my back”; “had this sharp knife”. “I know it was a knife * * * he put the blade around the back to my neck.” “[H]e put the knife on around my neck again.” “He had it in the left hand, I think.” “He had it in his left hand.” “When I was sitting on the bed, he put the knife to my neck, like around like that. I think it was a knife; I didn’t turn around to see what it was.” “He stood up there with the knife in his hand.” “He put the knife around my neck again.” “[H]e put the knife around my neck.”
The fireman to whom she appeared at the firehouse testified: “She said she had been attacked by a man with a knife.”

. Here are other parts of her testimony:
The court asked: “But you didn’t see it [the knife] ?”
Witness: “I didn’t see it.”
The court again: “Did you ever see what you thought was a knife or any kind of sharp instrument * * * ?”
Witness: “I will tell you the truth, I never did see it but I felt it.”
On cross: “You have already told the Court and the government attorney that you at no time saw a knife, isn’t that right?” A. “That is right, but I felt it.”
“1 didn’t see the knife at that time; I was so scared at that time.”
“My eyes weren’t closed; I was looking.” “I was looking at him.”
“No, I didn’t see it [the knife].”
Q. “Did he have any clothes on at that time?” A. “No. His shorts, that’s all.”
Q. “Did you see any knife stuck in his shorts?” A. “No.”
Q. “Did you see a knife in his hand at any time during this forty-five minutes between these two acts of intercourse?” A. “I wasn’t looking for a knife.”

. Note, Forcible and Statutory Rape: An Exploration of the Operation and Objectives of the Consent Standard, 62 Yale L.J. 55, 57 (1952).

. See, e. g., Deffenbaugh v. State, 32 Ariz. 212, 257 P. 27, 29 (1927) ; State v. Dill, 4 Terry 533, 42 Del. 533, 40 A.2d 443, 444 (Del.Ct.Oyer & Terminer 1944).

. E. g., Davis v. Commonwealth, 186 Va. 936, 45 S.E.2d 167 (1947) ; Allison v. State, 204 Ark. 609, 164 S.W.2d 442 (1942).