Court Opinion

ID: 9647300
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 13:30:09.824388+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:47.667888
License: Public Domain

GALBREATH, Judge
(dissenting).
I am unable to agree that under the facts of this case and the law of this State and the majority of other jurisdictions that the plaintiff in error may be punished twice for the forcible acts of intercourse resulting in his conviction. I must therefore respectfully dissent.
The general law in this State, it seems to me, was expressed by our Supreme Court after discussing the views pro and con on multiple convictions involving separate crimes committed in a single episode of criminality:
“While, in view of these authorities, we feel constrained to hold that in a case like this the jury may find the prisoner guilty *213upon each count, and ascertain the punishment separately, we are of opinion that the usual and better practice in such cases is to find a general verdict for the two cognate offenses charged.”
Even if it be conceded that two convictions and two punishments may be had in any case upon separate counts, the practice is not approved, and, certainly it must be clear that the offenses are wholly separate and distinct. Our own cases appear to prohibit the practice where the offenses grow out of one transaction and involve but one criminal intent. Patmore v. State, 152 Tenn. 281, 277 S.W. 892.
Albeit the majority does not agree, I am of the opinion there was but a single intent involved insofar as the victim in this case was concerned- — that was to rape her. The majority cites Turnbow v. State, in which the Oklahoma Court of Appeals held directly that “several acts of intercourse between the prosecutrix and the defendant . occurring over a twenty-six hour period of time” constituted but a single act of rape. Since there has never been a case involving the facts and the point of law in Tennessee, we must look to other jurisdictions for guidance.
In Peterson v. State, 116 Neb. 268, 216 N.W. 823, the Nebraska Supreme Court gave the following description of fact and conclusion of law which would fit this case:
[T]he defendant . . . secured the physical control and possession of the prosecutrix which thereafter was continuously maintained and exercised by him for a period of not to exceed two hours; that during this time, for the purpose mentioned, the prosecutrix was kept and carried about Morrill county, Nebraska, in an automobile, and finally taken to the home of the defendant; that, en route, the prosecutrix was twice compelled to submit to sexual intercourse with the defendant . . .; that, upon arrival at defendant’s home, prosecutrix was forcibly removed from the automobile, taken into the house, where the sexual act was repeated by the accused .
The jury, as triers of fact, who heard this evidence and saw the witnesses, were the sole judges of its truth. In connection with surrounding facts and circumstances appearing in the record, if believed, it established one indivisible, criminal transaction, initiated and carried out by the accused in person, all of which took place within a short period of time on a single night; and during which everything said and done was in furtherance of one continuous, criminal purpose not completed and entirely consummated on part of the accused until after his last sexual relations with prosecutrix at his home.
I concede that separate and distinct acts of rape may and can be susceptible to separate prosecutions and punishments. My point is that although the rape in this case took place over a period of an hour or so and involved different locations, it was one continuing transaction. A somewhat similar situation is described in another Oklahoma case. That case also involved a defendant of some fifty years of age as was the defendant here. The forcible act of intercourse in that case was also interrupted as in this case and later resumed and completed. But I will let the Oklahoma Court tell the story:
In the course of the act, especially where the female was an unwilling participant, the male organ might be inserted and removed any number of times before the male experienced an emission or got his satisfaction. When this would happen he would be unable to make further penetration at least for from a few minutes to a few hours, depending upon the age and physical well being of the male. Each penetration where position of parties changed numerous times could not be treated as a separate act of rape where they formed a part and parcel of a continuous performance.
The prosecutrix testified concerning the act, that the defendant got a knife *214out of the car pocket, held it near her and pressed a spring and the blade flew open, and that he demanded that she take off her clothing. That she protested, but that he forced her to take off her jeans and underclothing. Witness was asked on direct examination:
“Q. Did he have sexual intercourse there in the front seat? A. I guess that is what you call it.
“Q. Did he put his male organ inside your female organ? A. Yes.
“Q. How far? A. Clear in.
“Q. And then what happened? A. He told me to get in the back seat because he couldn’t do it in the front.” She further stated that she was crying and did not know what she was doing or how she got in the back seat, but got back there and that the same thing continued there as in the front seat; that he just forced his male organ in her and that when he finished that she was bleeding and that he told her to be careful not to get blood on the seat and that he took her underclothes and wiped the seat.
On cross-examination counsel made many attempts to show by the prosecu-trix that there were two separate acts of intercourse between witness and the defendant. In this he was unsuccessful. There was no evidence of any appreciable interval between the acts of penetration in the front seat and the continuance in the back seat. Witness stated that the defendant after five or ten minutes in the front seat made her get in the back seat because “he said he couldn’t do it in the front seat”. Clearly indicating that he was not having a satisfactory experience there due no doubt to the lack of room and the difficulty of penetration, because Dr. Arrendiell, who examined witness soon after the act, testified that although there were two distinct lacerations with oozing of blood, that he had some difficulty inserting his index finger in making the examination. Defendant therefore sought greater freedom in the rear seat and there continued the act until gratified. The record indicates that defendant was around fifty years of age and it would indeed have been a miracle if the defendant could have completed an act in the front seat of the car and then moved to the back seat and immediately commenced and completed a second act. That would be contrary to nature. The defendant did not testify. A study of the entire record compels the conclusion that but one act of sexual intercourse was had between defendant and prosecutrix and therefore but one crime was charged and the proof showed but one crime committed. Beasley v. State, 94 Okl.Cr. 353, 236 P.2d 263.
Making it even more unlikely that the fifty year old defendant in this case had successfully carried out, completed or consummated his unlawful intent in this case when he was interrupted by being hit in the head with a rock, is the rather remarkable fact that his matured virility had already been tested by the prior act of intercourse with the lady who wielded the rock.
This was not the most aggravated case of rape that has come before the Court. While all rape is bad and none should go unpunished the facts suggest that the pros-ecutrix and her friend were not as attentive to their own well being as women not wishing to attract unwanted sexual attention from strange men should be. While unattended on Charlotte Avenue (the Nashville counterpart of Memphis’ Beale Street and Chattanooga’s Ninth Street) they accepted a stranger’s late night invitation to get in his automobile and accompany him to a main thoroughfare that he could easily have been directed to by the simple instruction to make one right hand turn.
If nothing else it has become traditional in Tennessee in sexual assault cases, whether rape, carnal knowledge, crimes against nature, or incest, for the prosecution to seek and obtain only one conviction even though *215the course of the proscribed conduct involving a single victim may have (as in the case of incest for example) continued literally for years until exposed. Many of these cases have involved little children and other victims more helpless in their plights than the foolhardy actions of the two adult females in this case suggest they were. If we are to depart from the well established practice described in Patmore, supra, and the many other cases in which single convictions have resulted from repeated acts of sexual criminality, I would wait for a case in which the crime was of a more aggravated nature.