Court Opinion

ID: 9531394
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:10:28.617858+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:26.204662
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion
Emmert, J.
From the time of Blackstone, the dangers of a female’s false accusations of rape causing an innocent victim to lose his life or liberty have been clearly recognized by all well considered authorities. When this court now overrules Burton v. State (1953), 232 Ind. 246, 111 N. E. 2d 892, it does not do so on the basis that the reason for the rule has ceased, and therefore the rule should cease. When a reason ceases, it is generally adequate cause for overruling prior precedents. Nor it it a case where there never was any reason for the rule in the first place. It overrules the Burton case by returning to the now thoroughly discredited Yessen v. State (1950), 228 Ind. 316, 92 N. E. 2d 621, where a three to two majority of this court affirmed a conviction on the perjured testimony of a juvenile *228delinquent, given in support of an affidavit, in the execution of which the agents for the State committed a felony and a fraud on the trial court, as disclosed by the uncontradicted sworn testimony before the United States District Court for the Northern District of Indiana. See dissenting opinion Yessen v. State (1955), 234 Ind. 311, 319, 323, 126 N. E. 2d 760. There, not only did the prosecutrix say she lied under oath, but the affidavit itself, being executed by the commission of a felony, was void ab initio. It logically follows all subsequent proceedings, including the judgment, were void.
At least since 1769 it has been the enlightened policy of the criminal law to give primary consideration to the protection of the innocent, “for the law holds it better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent party suffer.” Blackstone, Commentaries on the Law (Gavit’s Ed.), Ch. 27, p. 909. Unless this court is going to repudiate this philosophy in the administration of criminal justice, it should heed the unanimous opinion of the internationally noted authorities on psychiatry, such as Dr. Karl A. Menninger and the others cited by Dean Wigmore, and hereinafter quoted.
If ever there was a conviction based upon the uncorroborated testimony of a prosecutrix who was an admitted perjurer many times, this appeal is it.
This is the second time the facts embraced in the charge come before this court. In the first appeal, cause No. 29,195, we reversed the judgment of the St. Joseph Probate Court for want of jurisdiction of the subject matter by that court. Wedmore v. State (1954), 233 Ind. 545, 122 N. E. 2d 1. We have examined the record of the first appeal and properly take judicial- notice of what is therein contained. Denny, Clerk v. State (1896), 144 Ind. 503, 42 N. E. 929; Rooker v. Fidelity *229Trust Co. (1931), 202 Ind. 641, 651, 652, 177 N. E. 454; In re Harrison (1953), 231 Ind. 665, 109 N. E. 2d 722.
Appellant’s motion for a new trial challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the verdict. Upon the second trial Nancy Marie Reed, hereinafter referred to as the prosecutrix, testified in substance that she was born September 12, 1937; that in the afternoon of Sunday, March 29, 1953, she, and Martha Richards, Caroline Bauer, Richard (Dick) Wedmore, Jack Wed-more and Jack Holderman were at Holderman’s house; that she and the other two girls had been drinking wine and beer and some of the young men had been drinking beer; that they had music and were dancing; that about 5:30 P.M. appellant took her to a bedroom where he had intercourse with her. In about one-half hour all of them left and went to the Wedmore apartment. While at the Wedmore apartment Joyce Wedmore, the estranged wife of Jack Wedmore, and her sister Carol Murphy made a visit.
Two days later the prosecutrix and Martha Richards were taken to police headquarters where Officer Soko and Policewoman Hartman threatened the prosecutrix “with Reform School,” and then took her written statement in which she charged appellant had sexual relations with her at the Holderman home, and Richard Wedmore also had intercourse with her later at the Wedmore home. The State never attempted to deny the clear evidence the proscutrix was threatened with commitment to the Indiana Girls’ School.
The State failed to produce any evidence whatever that in any way corroborated her statement as to intercourse with either Wedmore. She made no outcry, she made no complaint. Her ex parte coerced statement to the police about telling Grace Reed, Martha Bauer and Caroline Bauer did not amount to any complaint, nor *230did the State have any of these people testify as to the incident. There was no medical examination had, nor was there any psychiatric examination, or examination by any physician qualified to give an opinion as to her mental condition. Both records show numerous statements by her under oath that she did not have sexual intercourse with the appellant or his brother. At the second trial she was confused, and when confronted with her contradictory testimony she became hysterical.
The first day the prosecutrix testified during the first trial, seven times she denied having had sexual relations with the appellant. The next day she took the witness stand and said she did have intercourse with the appellant at the home of Jack Holderman. Before she took the stand she was outside the court room crying. We could hardly presume the appellant induced her to change her testimony. As to the State’s activities, “there comes a point where this Court should not be ignorant as judges of what we know as men.” Watts v. Indiana (1949), 338 U. S. 49, 52, 69 S. Ct. 1347, 93 L. Ed. 1801, 1805. On January 20, 1954, she voluntarily went to the office of appellant’s counsel and executed an affidavit that Richard Wedmore never did have sexual relations with her at any time at any place. Before that, on the 17th day of November, 1953, before a Deputy Prosecuting Attorney she executed an affidavit that she had given perjured testimony in St. Joseph Probate Court that Richard Wedmore had had sexual intercourse with her and that in fact he had never at any time done so.
On February 17, 1954, she again went to the office of appellant’s counsel and executed an affidavit that appellant “Jack Wedmore did not have sexual relations with me on that date or any other date; and that he in no way molested me in any way, sexually or otherwise *231(Italics supplied.) Neither visit to Mr. Patton’s office was solicited by him. Thus, by the prosecutrix’ own words her testimony stands impeached, contradicted and perjured, not only as to this appellant but also as to his brother.
The grave danger to the innocent in permitting a sex conviction to stand on the uncorroborated testimony of a prosecutrix is conceded by all the experienced medical authorities in the field:
“Psuedologia phantasticia is a mixture of lies with imagination. Not infrequently, this is the basis of alleged sexual assault. Girls assert they have been raped, sometimes recounting as true a story they have heard, falsely naming individuals or describing them.” 1 Gray’s Attorneys’ Textbook of Medicine (3rd Ed.), §96.16, p. 940.
Dean Wigmore, in his Treatise on Evidence, Vol. 3, §924a (3rd Ed.), quotes the following recognized international medical authorities on the problem:
“ ‘The most dangerous witnesses in prosecutions for morality offences are the youthful ones (often mere children) in whom the sex-instinct holds the foremost place in their thoughts and feelings. This intensely erotic propensity often can be detected in the wanton facial expression, the sensuous motions, and the manner of speech. But on the other hand one must not be deceived by a madonna-like countenance that such a girl can readily assume; nor by the convincing upturn of the eyes, with which she seeks to strengthen her credibility. To be sure, the course sensuousness of her demeanor, coupled with a pert and forward manner, usually leaves no doubt about her type of thought. Even in her early years can be seen in countenance and demeanor the symptoms of the hussy-type, which in later years enable one at first glance to recognize the hardened prostitute. With profuse falsities they shamelessly speak of the coarsest sex-matters. Having come early into bad practices, they can weave these into their testimony and decorate their narratives with *232the most plausible details. ... It is just such witnesses that often bring into their picture individuals who have never even been near them and that throw suspicion recklessly on the most worthy persons’.” Dr. Otto Monkemoller, “Psychology and Psychopathology of Testimony,” (Vol. IV of Bibliothek der Kriminalistik, ed. Aschaffenburg and Kriegsmann), Part 2, Chap. B, §a6, p. 333.
“ ‘Every girl who enters a plausible but unproved story of rape should be required to have a psychiatric examination. As you know, I have elsewhere expressed myself publicly as favoring the psychiatric examination of criminals and those charged with crime, and I agree with you that this should be extended to include some of the individuals who make criminal charges, not only of rape but also of malpractice and other personal attacks. The reason I think that rape in particular belongs in this category is one well known to psychologists, namely, that fantasies of being raped are exceedingly common in women, indeed one may almost say that they are probably universal. By this I mean that most women, if we may judge from our clinical experience, entertain more or less consciously at one time or another fleeting fantasies or fears that they are being or will be attacked by a man. Of course, the normal woman who has such a fantasy does not confuse it with reality, but it is so easy for some neurotic individuals to translate their fantasies into actual beliefs and memory falsifications that I think a safeguard should certainly be placed upon this type of criminal charge.
“ ‘. . . .’ ” Dr. Karl A. Menninger (Menninger Clinic of Psychiatry and Neurology, Topeka, Kan.) ; MS letter Sept. 5, 1933.
“ ‘Accusations of rape, unless there is perfectly clear evidence of an assault, are open to suspicion. Necessarily they must always be treated as open to suspicion if the accusation is a purely verbal one unsupported by corroborative evidence. Such accusations are doubly difficult to deal with when it is remembered that the medical evidence sustaining or otherwise such accusations is proverbially not dependable and inadequate. . . .’ ” Dr. William A. "White (U. S. Department of the Interior, Supt. St. *233Elizabeth’s Hospital, Washington, D. C.) ; MS. letter Sept. 7, 1933.
“‘We, who have had extensive criminal experience among the mentally ill, know how frequently sexual assault is charged or claimed with nothing more substantial supporting this belief than an unrealized wish or unconscious, deeply suppressed sex-longing or thwarting. A person need not be insane to have a craving that is intolerable or in conflict with reality, and a person need not be seriously disturbed mentally to find some satisfying substitute for a suppressed and self-denied wish, nor to have such appear as a reality in spite of oneself. This is a well accepted mental mechanism. I, therefore, believe that while psychiatric examination is desirable in all criminal cases, it is imperative in every case where sexual assault is charged.’ ” Dr. W. F. Lorenz (Director of the Psychiatric Institute, University of Wisconsin) ; MS. letter of Sept. 19, 1933.
The specific instances related by Dr. Wm. Healy and Mary Teeney Healy in the same section of Wigmore are too detailed to cite here without unduly extending this opinion.
Dr. Alfred W. Herzog in his treatise on Medical Jurisprudence (1931), also takes notice of the dangerous propensity to falsely accuse an innocent man in some sex offenses:
“Charges of rape are in many cases false and the testimony of the alleged victim should be scrutinized very carefully. Not only are false charges often made against a man to whom the complaining witness submitted willingly, but very frequently against an entirely innocent party, for the purpose of shielding the one who may have had sexual intercourse with the female and caused her to become pregnant. . . . [Page 827.]
“. . . Likewise, in some cases injuries to the genital organs of a child are made purposely so as to fasten the crime of rape on some innocent person. . . . [Page 831.]
*234“Accusations of rape being a favorite method of either covering one’s own sexual misconduct or for blackmail, it has frequently occurred that small children were purposely injured by their mother for the purpose of simulating effects of rape, by bruising the parts, destroying the hymen, dilating the vagina and even infecting them with gonorrhoea. There are cases in which a mother discovers that her little girl either has a vaginal discharge or bleeds from the vagina at an age when the first menstruation is not yet expected. She may suspect a sexual assault on her child and interrogate the little girl and by either frightening her or by awakening the child’s pseudologia phantastica, start the child to romancing and confessing a sexual attack on her, which story is without foundation. Thus an innocent person may be accused of having committed rape. Little girls when they once have told such story will generally stick to it and only careful questioning will sometimes succeed in baring the deceit by the impossible details of the crime related by the child. [Page 845.]
“Many accusations of rape have been made against physicians and dentists. Most of these are deliberate false charges for the purpose of blackmail or collecting money by suit or by settlement, while other charges of rape are made by individuals who, while coming out of narcosis, have voluptuous dreams and honestly believe that they have been raped. Such may also happen in hysterical cases. . . .” [Pages 845-846.]
Even in the 1700’s when the recognized treatment for the mentally ill was placing them in jail or a “madhouse,” experienced judges and lawyers had observed the grave dangers to the innocent when charged with a sex offense.
“. . . Where the evidence of children is admitted, it is much to be wished, that there should be some concurrent testimony of time, place and circumstances, in order to make out the fact; and that the conviction should not be grounded solely on the unsupported accusation of an infant, under years *235of discretion. The charge of rape, said Hale, is an accusation easy to make, hard to be proved, but harder to be defended by the party, accused, though innocent.” Blackstone, Commentaries on the Law (Gavit’s Edition), p. 840.
The American Bar Association by its Committee on the Improvement of the Law of Evidence (1937-38) took note of the experience of courts and psychiatrists, and reported as follows:
“ ‘Psychiatric Examination of Witnesses in Sex Cases. The penalties for sex-crimes are very severe, —justly so, in most cases. But the very severity of the penalty calls for special procedural precautions to protect an innocent accused from condemnation by unreliable testimony.
“‘Modern psychiatry has already made its bow and been introduced properly to the criminal courts, by way of examining the mental condition of the accused. But there is also a necessity for invoking its aid for a certain type of witness in a certain class of criminal charges.
“ ‘Today it is unanimously held, (and we say “unanimously” advisedly) by experienced psychiatrists that the complainant woman in a sex offense should always be examined by competent experts to ascertain whether she suffers from some mental or moral delusion or tendency, frequently found especially in young girls, causing distortion of the imagination in sex cases.
“ ‘The imperative nature of this measure is further emphasized by the legal fact that the penalty for intercourse with a girl under sixteen years (so-called “statutory rape”) is extremely heavy — sometimes twenty years; in one State, life imprisonment ! Thus the erotic imagination of an abnormal child of attractive appearance may send an innocent man to the penitentiary for life. The warnings of the psychiatric profession, supported as they are by thousands of observed cases, should be heeded by our profession.
“ ‘We recommend that in all charges of sex offenses, the complaining witness be required to be *236examined before trial by competent psychiatrists for the purpose of ascertaining her probable credibility, the report to be presented in evidence.’ ” 3 Wigmore, Evidence (3rd Ed.), §924a.
Dean Wigmore’s advice, which this court now holds of no value, is as follows:
“There is, however, at least one situation in which chastity may have a direct connection with veracity, viz. when a woman or young girl testifies as complainant against a man charged with a sexual crime, — rape, rape under age, seduction, assault. Modern psychiatrists have amply studied the behavior of errant young girls and women coming before the courts in all sorts of cases. Their psychic complexes are multifarious, distorted partly by inherent defects, partly by diseased derangements or abnormal instincts, partly by bad social environment, partly by temporary physiological or emotional conditions. One form taken by these complexes is that of contriving false charges of sexual offenses by men. The unchaste (let us call it) mentality finds incidental but direct expression in the narration of imaginary sex-incidents of which the narrator is the heroine or the victim. On the surface the narration is straightforward and convincing. The real victim, however, too often in such cases is the innocent men; for the respect and sympathy naturally felt by any tribunal for a wronged female helps to give easy credit to such a plausible tale.
“No doubt any judge of a criminal Court and any prosecuting attorney can corroborate this with instances from his own observation. But the lamentable thing is that the orthodox rules of Evidence in most instances prevent adequate probing of the testimonial mentality of a woman-witness, so as to reveal the possible falsity of such charges. Judging merely from the reports of cases in the appellate courts, one must infer that many innocent men have gone to prison because of tales whose falsity could not be exposed. And the situation of injustice has become the more extreme, because in some States the so-called age of consent has been raised to 16 or 18 years (thus making consent immaterial below *237that age) and in a few States even life imprisonment may be imposed; so that a plausible tale by an attractive, innocent-looking girl may lead to a life-sentence for the accused, because the rules of Evidence (and the judge’s unacquaintance with modern psychiatry) permit no adequate probing of the witness’ veracity.
“The modern realist movement having insisted on removing the veil of romance which enveloped all womanhood since the days of chivalry, it is now allowable for judges to look at the facts. The facts are that there exist occasionally female types of excessive or perverted sexuality, just as there are such male types; and that these are often accompanied by a testimonial plausibility which should not be taken at its face value. Only an inquiry into the social and mental history will reveal the degree of credibility. This inquiry the law of Evidence ought to permit to the fullest extent, rejecting the hindrance of rules that were framed without an understanding of these facts.

“No judge should ever let a sex-offence charge go to the jury unless the female complainant’s social history and mental makeup_ have been examined and testified to by a qualified physician.

“It is time that the Courts awakened to the sinister possibilities of injustice that lurk in believing such a witness without careful psychiatric scrutiny. ...” 3 Wigmore, Evidence (3rd Ed.), §924a.1
In the Burton case, supra, 232 Ind. 246, 255, 111 N. E. 2d 892, we did “not hold that in every case where *238a sexual offense is charged there should be a psychiatric examination of the prosecutrix. There are many cases where the facts and circumstances leave no doubt of the guilt of the accused, . . .” This places no undue burden upon the State, and does not require a psychiatric examination of the prosecutrix when her testimony is corroborated by other facts and circumstances in the record so that the conviction would not be had upon her story alone, which the experience of the ages has demonstrated is too often the means of taking the life or liberty of an innocent accused.
The Burton case, supra, 232 Ind. 246, 111 N. E. 2d 892, did not hold a prosecutrix was incompetent to testify. “An incompetent witness is one who does not answer the requirements of the law; not legally able or qualified to give testimony. The objection does not go to the evidence itself, but to the person.” Gilbert v. Estate of Swain (1894), 9 Ind. App. 88, 90, 36 N. E. 374. What the Burton case held was the uncorrobrated testimony of a prosecutrix who had not had a psychiatric examination to test her credibility, was not substantial evidence of probative value upon which a conviction in a sex offense could rest. This can properly be raised by a motion for new trial on the ground the verdict or finding was not sustained by sufficient evidence. From the discussion I have had with the members of the bench and bar over the State I believe the legal profession supports the rule of the Burton case. The matter of sending innocent accused persons to the penitentiary is not one which should await a legislative remedy. The record in this case is about as strong as could be had for reaffirming the rule of the Burton case. Here the conviction must stand upon the sole testimony of a prosecutrix who by the records here was proved to be a pathological liar and perjurer.
*239The most shocking aspect of the proceedings had to obtain the judgment now under attack in this appeal lies in the fact that the State, through its representatives, knew it had to rely upon the uncorroborated testimony of a prosecutrix who had. committed perjury with reek-less abandon against both appellant and his brother. Such a judgment is so tainted it ought not be permitted to stand. The State must be presumed to have known that Burton v. State (May 5, 1953), 232 Ind. 246, 111 N. E. 2d 892, supra, had been the law of this jurisdiction for more than two years before the second trial, yet it made no eifort, as far as this record goes, to have a psychiatric examination of the prosecutrix to determine whether it was about to attempt to send a man to prison on perjured testimony. If it did have such a psychiatric examination, we must assume that it showed the prosecutrix to be a psychopathic liar. The State may have assumed that the end justified the means as far as the appellant was concerned, but we cannot condone such a rule for administering justice. Sylvester v. State (1933), 205 Ind. 628, 187 N. E. 669. When the State insisted on carrying the prosecution through to its tainted conclusion after the perjuries had been discovered, its conduct appears no more than a face-saving procedure. The State’s duty to be fair does not end with its preliminary investigation before the filing of a charge. It continues as long as the conviction stands. The only way for this court to do right and justice would be to reverse the judgment and order a new trial so that some competent psychiatrist can determine wherein lies the truth in the conflicting stories told under oath by the prosecutrix.
The judgment should be reversed.
Note. — Reported in 143 N. E. 2d 649.

. False accusations due to sex fantasies have a relevant parallel in the Salem Witchcraft trials where 20 innocent victims were executed on fantasy testimony. See Marion L. Starkey, The Devil in Massachusetts (1949), p. 2. Of these young women, “A few, notably Mary Walcott and Elizabeth Booth, presently settled down and got married. Some of the others, still manless, and apparently at a loss how to put in their time in these duller, flatter days, turned, it was rumored, to coarser pleasures; certain of them, never explicitly named in history, went unmistakably bad.” ,
“In Salem Village where this development could he watched at close range, there was said to be a general revulsion against them. It was not good to watch a wench at her harlotries and remember that on that harlot’s word the good and chaste had been hanged.” Ibid pp. 240, 241.