Court Opinion

ID: 9630029
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:57:56.331825+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:04:33.843837
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing
POWELL, Judge.
Plaintiff in error in support of petition for rehearing filed an exhaustive printed *566brief, and this court in addition heard lengthy oral argument.
The contention that the statute involved did not clearly set out just what sex acts should be considered “crimes against nature” is not well taken, in view of the interpretation of the statute by this court in Ex parte DeFord, 1917, 14 Okl.Cr. 133, 168 P. 58. Such interpretation, right or wrong, must now be treated with the same binding effect as a legislative interpretation in view of the many sessions of the Legislature since the DeFord case, without any different definition being enacted.
. It appears to be the general rule that when a construction has been placed upon a statute by the highest court having jurisdiction to fix its meaning, such construction becomes a part of the statute as if it had been written into it originally. Eau Claire Nat’l Bank v. Benson, 106 Wis. 624, 82 N.W. 604. See also Ann.Cas.1914A, 1081; Rowe v. Richards, 35 S.D. 201, 151 N.W. 1001, L.R.A.1915E, 1075, Ann.Cas. 1918A, 294.
That the plaintiff in error well understood the implications of the information and the nature of the crime with which he stood charged and was called on to defend, is apparent without a shadow of a doubt.
The argument that the crime for which the defendant was convicted is of the nature to require the services of a psychologist and psychiatrist, if the purpose of the law is to act as a deterrent rather than punishment for punishment’s sake, and that the real purpose of the law is in fact circumvented when a person with the record of the within defendant is placed in a penitentiary among young boys and persons not sexually perverted and thus given opportunity to follow a compelling urge to prey on such persons, is not without merit. It is said that perverts are not isolated at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary, and that there is no provision to afford them required medical treatment.
For an exhaustive article treating the obligation of legislatures to provide a method of treatment of sex deviates, see Vol. 8, pp. 497-500, Arkansas Law Review and Bar Assoc. Journal. Of course the Statement of the writer of that article that Oklahoma is one of the states of the Union that has a sodomy statute is incorrect. Rather the Oklahoma statute denounces “the detestable and abominable crime against nature.” 21 O.S.1951 § 886.
The need mentioned is probably an acute one, but such matters come within the province of the Legislature, and legislation comes about by the activity of the public. Not long ago no state in the Union provided juvenile courts, but most states now have either special juvenile courts or special rules applying to minors. From newspaper investigations and press reports of persons murdered in penitentiaries resisting the advances of perverts, we think the problem worthy of consideration by the Legislative body. If defendant was not confined to the penitentiary he would, no doubt, from past history, continue to prey on young boys and others.
In this case I would reduce the sentence from five years to four years to more forcefully call attention to the duty of the State to attempt the rehabilitation of sex perverts in view of the demoralization and moral decay brought about by such persons and where the condition with which they may be afflicted is by many becoming recognized as a form of mental disease.