Court Opinion

ID: 9589241
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:42:52.092916+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:33:57.338760
License: Public Domain

Bobbitt, J.,
concurring: The evidence, considered in the light most favorable to the State, is sufficient to support the finding by the jury *177that defendant, a male person over eighteen years of age, unlawfully assaulted the prosecutrix.
In the court below, defendant’s counsel submitted elaborate prayers for instructions bearing upon the subj ect of entrapment. I agree that error, if any, in the instructions given was in defendant’s favor.
Furthermore, I agree that the defense of entrapment, as understood and defined in the criminal law, was not available to the defendant under the evidence. Everything prosecutrix did was done under threat or peremptory demand of defendant.
The evidence is clear that the primary purpose, if not the sole purpose, of the alleged entrapment was to identify the man who had called prosecutrix over the telephone. The plan was to contact this man and to draw him into conversation whereby he would expressly or by implication identify himself as the person who had telephoned.
The court below rightly analyzed the case. The evidence as to the appointments and meetings, and as to what occurred immediately preceding the assault, was relevant on the question of defendant’s intent at the time of the assault, i.e., whether he then intended to have sexual intercourse with the prosecutrix at all events, notwithstanding any resistance she might make. On this phase of the case, after correct instructions as to the elements of the crime, the court instructed the jury as follows: “As I have already stated to you, if you are not satisfied from the evidence and beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant assaulted Mrs. Buffaloe with the then present intent to commit rape upon her, it is your duty to return a verdict of not guilty as to that.”
Included in the court’s review of defendant’s contentions are the following: The defendant “contends that, if you find from the evidence and beyond a reasonable doubt that he was there and did open the door of the car and get in the automobile, the circumstances, the testimony in this case, could not lead you to the conclusion that he intended to rape her; says and contends that human experience, your common sense and experience is contrary to that, because he says the most the State’s evidence could possibly satisfy you beyond a reasonable doubt was that he went there by appointment, and the State so contends he went there by appointment; that on two occasions, at least one at the drive-in and one at the railroad crossing before that time, the very person that the State says was to be there, and the State contends that it was he, the defendant; that the State’s own evidence tends to show that he had reason to believe that he was being met by a woman agreeing to his proposition; that she had gone twice to meet him and, having done so the third time, and having unlocked the door and invited him into the automobile, that it is contrary to human experience, contrary to common sense that he would have then, after all the arrangements were *178made and after the appointment was made and plans made and he was invited into the automobile, that it would have then been foolish for him to attempt to rape her there; that with all arrangements made he would have proceeded at his leisure to accomplish his purposes; therefore, he says and contends the State’s own evidence negatives the idea of any attempt to rape her or to assault her with intent to commit rape when he had a right to assume, if the State’s evidence is true, that he could accomplish his purpose of sexual intercourse with the woman meeting him at his leisure and in his own time, and that therefore there was no reason, and that you ought not to be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that he intended to rape her there; contends that he could have accomplished his purpose at any time, and the defendant says and contends you ought not to consider that charge seriously against him and that in any event you ought to acquit him of the charge of intent to commit rape.” These contentions were rejected bjr the jury.
In my opinion the court, by the instructions quoted above and similar instructions, gave to defendant the full benefit of the circumstances bearing upon what he calls entrapment as related to the only issue on which such evidence was germane.