Court Opinion

ID: 9674131
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:23:39.447743+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:25.738765
License: Public Domain

DAVIDSON, Judge,
dissenting.
Here is a real “Believe It or Not” (with due apology to Ripley) !
The two principals in this case — and the only persons, that *95is: the prosecutrix and the appellant, who knew whether the appellant was guilty of the offense charged — each testified that the alleged act did not happen and that appellant did not commit the crime of rape upon the prosecutrix.
So, we have here a case where the jury, the trial court, and a majority of this court, all of whom know nothing of the facts, say that the state proved that the prosecutrix was not only raped by someone but by the appellant — all in the face of the testimony of the prosecutrix that rape did not occur.
Does the presumption of innocence and reasonable doubt (Art. 9, P.C.) still exist in this state? The holding of my brethren, here, shows that it does not.
Now let us see what the facts are, as revealed by this record.
The prosecutrix, upon whom the state alleged the appellant “did make an assault” and whom he did “ravish and have carnal knowledge of,” was a female of the age of fourteen years and nine months when the offense was alleged to have been committed. Lacking only a month of being fifteen years of age at the time she testified, prosecutrix was called as a witness by the state. There is nothing about her testimony to indicate, nor does this record otherwise suggest, that she did not possess normal intellect and intelligence.
The date of the alleged rape was fixed as the night of December 3, 1955. The place where the act was purported to have occurred was a room in the house in which the witness was staying. Appellant resided at the house.
Upon direct examination the witness testified that about 12:30 o’clock at night appellant came home and that she got up and opened the door. I quote from her testimony:
(“Q. Did he come in your room?) A. No, sir; he kept to his room.
(“Q. Did you ever talk with him?) A. No, sir.
(“Q. Did he have any wine, or anything?) A. Yes, sir.
(Q. Did you drink some wine?) A. Yes, sir.
*96(“Q. How much did you drink?) A. I drank two glasses and a half.
(“Q. Two glasses and a half?)' A. Yes, sir.
(“Q. Then what did you do?) A. Got in the bed and went to sleep.
(“Q. You did what?) A. Got in the bed and went to sleep.
(“Q. Then did Robert Collier, Pete Collier, ever come in your room?) A. No, sir.
(“Q. You tell the jury he didn’t come in there? Is that what your testimony is?) A. Yes, sir.
(“Q. Do you recall ever being in the Hospital?) A. Sir?
(“Q. Do you recall ever being at the Hospital here in Jasper?) A. No, sir.
(“Q. That morning?) A. That morning around eight, I did.
(“Q. You went to a Hospital in Jasper, didn’t you?) A. Yes, sir.
(“Q. Is that all you are going to tell the jury about this matter?) A. That is all I know to tell them.”
Upon cross-examination by appellant, the witness testified:
(“Q. John Evelyn, do you have any complaint against Robert Collier?) A. No, sir.
(“Q. Did he do anything to you?) A. Not as I knows of.
(“Q. John Evelyn, what was the relation between you and Robert Collier? You have known him for a long time, haven’t you?) A. Yes, sir.
(“Q. How did you regard him?) A. Sir?
(“Q. How did you regard him? Was he like a brother or * * * ) A. Yes, sir.
*97(“Q. What did he think of you? How did he regard you and treat you?) A. He treated me like I was a sister of his.
(“Q. Would Robert Collier do anything like that to you?) A. I don’t think he would.
(“Q. Are you afraid to stay in the same house with him?) A. No, sir.”
Further, in reference to her conditon the next morning, the witness testified as follows:
(“Q. Were you sore, John Evelyn?) A. No sir.
(“Q. Were you sore around your privates?) A. No, sir.
(“Q. Were you hurting?) A. No, sir.
(“Q. Were you affected any way from your private parts other than your menstruation?) A. No, sir.
(“Q. Other than the normal blood flow you weren’t sick?) A. No, sir.
(“Q. Did any soreness develop any other time?) No, sir.
(“Q. Do you know of any scratches or any injuries around your private parts?) A. No, sir.
(“Q. Have you been able to find any?) A. No, sir.
(“Q. Have you tried to find any?) A. Yes, sir.
(“Q. And as far as you can tell, you haven’t found any?) A. No, sir.
(“Q. John Evelyn, why did you go to bed with your clothes on?) A. He had promised to take me swimming at Pineland, but it was late when he got back.”
In the face of that testimony by the prosecutrix and the positive denial of guilt by the appellant, this court affirms this conviction.
The state sought to defeat the testimony of the prosecutrix by circumstantial evidence consisting of the testimony of a doc*98tor who examined her the next morning, as also the condition of her underclothes and the bedclothes.
The doctor who made the examination testified as to the physical condition of prosecutrix, as follows:
“So, I had my nurse and the girl’s aunt, Lillie, to clean her up, remove the clotted blood. When that was done, I went in to make an examination of her. And the examination disclosed that there were some lacerations in the posterior wall of the entrance to the vagina. There was one laceration perhaps an inch long. There were two others; one on either side of it that were shorter in extent. Blood was oozing from the larger one and to a lesser extent from one of the smaller lacerations. There was no evidence — no evidence that I could determine that there had been any laceration of any intact hymen — the hymen was patent, and, according to my examination, did not show any recent lacerations, or tears about it; but it would admit my two fingers with difficulty and without any particular tearing.”
Notwithstanding such testimony, the following question was propounded to the doctor:
“From your examination of the girl and the effects you have related to the jury of your findings, assuming that in a rape case that the law defines penetration or entrance of a male organ to be — the slightest amount of entrance of the male organ into the female organ — need not having been completed; assuming that to be the state of the definition of the necessity of proof of penetration to 'establish the crime of rape, from your examination of her, tell the jury whether or not this girl had been raped? * * * Doctor, do you understand the question? Assuming those facts which I have asked you, and the assumption of the law concerning the necessary elements of penetration, and based upon your findings, tell the jury whether or not this girl had been raped?”
The witness’s answer was, “It was my opinion that she had been raped.”
Just why appellant’s counsel did not object to the expression of this opinion and the legal conclusion by the doctor upon the very question the jury were to determine, the record does not disclose. The fact nevertheless remains that the failure to object could not render such opinion and legal conclusion on the part of the doctor proof of appellant’s guilt.
*99So, in its final analysis, then, we have the state, by circumstantial evidence, here attempting to overcome the positive declarations and testimony of the injured female. The circumstances relied upon amounted to nothing more than suppositions, insinuations, and what-might-have-been.
There are, however, other and equally cogent reasons why the evidence is not sufficient to support the conviction. I have reference to what is known as the best evidence rule. Under that rule, the best evidence of which the nature of the case admits must be adduced. Inferior proof is not admissible until it is shown that the best evidence is unattainable. 18 Texas Jur., Evidence, Sec. 232, p. 365; 11 Texas Digest, Criminal Law, Key 398, p 462.
Under that rule it has been the consistent holding of this court in theft cases that secondary or circumstantial evidence cannot be utilized to prove want of consent to the taking of the property until it has been shown that the testimony of the owner is unavailable. White v. State, 156 Texas Cr. Rep. 408, 242 S.W. 2d 889, and authorities cited under Note 36 of Art. 1410, Vernon’s P.C.
If it be necessary to prove want of consent to the taking of the property by the owner thereof when he testifies as a witness in the case, how much more so would it be necesary to require proof by the prosecutrix in a rape case when she testified as a witness in the case to the commission by the accused of the constituent elements necessary to constitute that offense, especially the act of penetration.
After all, whether with or without consent, rape is an offense in the nature of an assault because it is consummated by an unlawful act upon the person of another.
In such cases the assaulted person knows what happened to her and if she fails to testify to such fact, circumstantial evidence ought not to be permitted to say for her that which she did not say — and in this case, refused to say.
What a fertile field for fraud my brethren have here laid down by their opinion in this case!
There is another reason why this conviction ought not to be affirmed: and this is shown by the misconduct of the jury. All the evidence heard on the motion for new trial shows that *100one of - the jurors gave material testimony to and before the other jurors before a verdict had been reached. This testimony was to the effect that the stains on the bedsheets were discharges from a male sexual organ. No witness had so testified upon the trial of the case. By that testimony the juror was putting before the jury a fact damaging to appellant, and not offered upon the trial of the case.
My brethren hold that such statement on the part of the juror was not harmful to this appellant and that it did not influence the jury’s verdict.
Subdivision 7 of Art. 753, C.C.P., says that a new trial “shall be granted” in a felony case “where the jury, after having retired to deliberate upon a case, have received other testimony.”
Under that statutory mandate it has been the long and consistent holding of this court that a violation thereof requires a reversal of the conviction and that injury to the accused will not be presumed and that no speculation as to injury will be indulged. There are something like seventy cases cited under Note 142 of Art. 753, Vernon’s C.C.P., which sustain the rule announced.
So here again I find my brethren overruling a long line of authorities without apparent reason other than that they have the power to do so.
My brethren cite the case of Howard v. State, 122 Texas Cr. Rep. 371, 55 S.W. 2d 1048, as sustaining their holding. That case is not in point. It did not involve a violation of the newevidenee provision of Subdivision 7 of Art. 753, C.C.P., but, to the contrary, was based upon Subdivision 8 of that article.
I respectfully enter my dissent.