Caple v. State

1909 OK CR 174, 105 P. 618, 106 P. 618, 3 Okla. Crim. 621, 1909 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 247
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma
DecidedDecember 18, 1909
DocketNo. A-243.
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 1909 OK CR 174 (Caple v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Caple v. State, 1909 OK CR 174, 105 P. 618, 106 P. 618, 3 Okla. Crim. 621, 1909 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 247 (Okla. Ct. App. 1909).

Opinion

FUEMAN, PRESIDING Judge.

First. The first ground relied upon by the defendant is that the caption of the indictment is “State of Oklahoma v. W. T. Caple”; the contention'being that it should have been “The State of Oklahoma v. W. T. Caple.” This question was passed upon and settled contrary to the contention of the defendant in another case against this defendant, ante, p. 72, 104 Pac. 493. This court there held that the omission of the word “the” before the words “State of Oklahoma” in the caption of an indictment was not fatal to the indictment.

Second. The next ground relied upon is that the evidence does not support the verdict. It appears from the evidence that the defendant at the time of the trial was 35 years of age, and Mrs. Anderson, the prosecuting witness, 17. Mrs. Anderson had been married but a few months, and had recently come with her husband from their former home in Tennessee, and they were engaged, at the time of the alleged offense, in farming at Chagris, some distance from Ardmore. Both were entirely unacquainted at Ardmore, except with a family named Byers, at whose home Mrs. Anderson was stopping at the time of the alleged crime. It appears from the testimony of Mrs. Anderson that her husband had been arrested on a charge of mortgaging a team belonging to his cousin, but with his authority, and was confined in the county jail at "Ardmore. The wife had come to Ardlnore to em *623 ploy counsel and procure bond for him. She had gone in the forenoon to the office of Attorney Coleman, who was representing Mr. Anderson, to see about the bond. The defendant was' present, .learned of the circumstances, and a few minutes after she had left the attorney’s office approached her in a friendly way, assuring her that he had a friend, Charlie Thomas, a well to do farmer living out from Ardmore a few miles, whom he felt would sign the bond, and that he (the defendant) would -also sign the bond, but could not schedule for enough alone 'without his friend Thomas, and proposed that they drive out and see him. It was accordingly arranged that after dinner .they would go and see Thomas and arrange for the bond. They started to Thomas’s place seven or eight miles southeast of Ardmore at 1:30 in the. afternoon, going in a one-seated top buggy, with two-horse team. They reached the house of Nancy Franklin, a negress, between 2 and 3 o’clock. The defendant stopped here, got a drink of water, and inquired the way to Thomas’, leaving the prosecutrix outside in the buggy. The negress pointed out the Thomas home, then in full view. The defendant returned to the buggy, and informed1 Mrs. Anderson that, owing to the road having been fenced, it would be necessary to make a detour around the fenced field in order to reach the Thomas residence; from this route he again detoured, and by all sorts of representations, without having ever gone to the Thomas residence, drove around all of the afternoon, claiming to he himself ■ lost, and wound up at nightfall in a clump of timber in a large uninhabited pasture, where he found himself alone with this young-unprotected woman, who had, in her desire to assist her husband, been lured to a lone spot, far from human aid, for the purpose of her forcible defilement by one who had posed as her friend. Although it was .raining, he then unhitched his horses, and turned them out to graze. He then proceeded to detail to the terrified woman an account of his escapade, brought to the attention of this court in Case A-156, ante, p. 72, 104 Pac. 493, where a five-year sentence of imprisonment was affirmed for his murderous attempt to kill. After making a demand *624 for sexual intercourse, which was resented, calling the attention of the prosecutrix to her unprotected and helpless condition, notifying her of his intention to force her, and reminding her of his inflexibility and determination in all things, being one that whatever he proposed he performed, he exhibited a revolver, and laying the same down near him, commenced the assault, which after every resistance on her part, she was finally overcome, and the completed act of rape accomplished by the penetration of her person, the terrors engendered throwing the woman into a nervous chill.

It does not appear at what time in the night the crime was actually accomplished, but it is reasonable to suppose that the defendant himself would be willing, on account of the inclem-ei^r of the weather, to return to Ad more as soon as his lustful monomania had temporarily subsided in being satisfied by the accomplishment of his purpose. The defendant left the pros-ecutrix at his own furnished house in Ardmore, in which there was no one at the time, where she stayed, not being able to locate the Byers home. Although she had had neither supper nor breakfast, she finally wept herself to sleep, and from her exhaustion and collapse did not awaken until nearly noon. She then went to Mrs. Byerp, who observed her distressed and disheveled condition, her eyes swollen from much weeping, her mental condition perturbed1; her body bruised from the encounter ip endeavoring to resist the assault from the defendant. She examined her wounds four days later, after the preliminary examination, and still found her badly bruised.

The defendant took the stand in his own behalf. He testified to all of the facts of the trip related by the prosecutrix, except the sexual intercourse — this he denied; admitted having learned of the prosecutrix at Coleman's office and the facts of her husband's imprisonment; of her desire to secure bond for him; of himself seeking her out later in town, and voluntarily and unsolicited offering to see that the bond was made, although he had never heard of the prosecutrix -nor her husband before, and had no knowledge of the character of the *625 offense charged against him; gave no reason for his interest in them, except his great magnanimity and sympathetic benevolence, going out to all persons in distress. Nowhere does he intimate that the prosecutrix had made any advances toward him; that her deportment on the trip was other than proper and ladylike. Although the defendant and his witness Tullis both gave testimony at the preliminary on the fourth day after the commission of the crime, it was very different from their evidence at the fiinal hearing, and the later testimony bears upon its face the appearance of having been concocted to bolster up the defense. At the preliminary neither said anything of having seen the prosecutrix drink liquors, but both testified to this at the trial. This- was the only matter at the hearing tending to place the prosecutrix in an unfavorable light, aside from the seurrillous affidavits in support of the motion for a new trial, and was immaterial for the purpose of this case, except as affecting her credibility as a witness. Mrs. Byers, a respectable woman, was with the^ girl very soon after Tullis says he saw her drinking whisky. She was close to her, assisting and sympathizing with her in her distress, examining her person and apparel, and had every opportunity to detect the effects of liquor in her manner and upon her breath. She observed no evidences of this kind, but saw only a heart-broken woman, weeping and grieving over her calamitous sorrow. The two drinks which Tullis and the defendant say they saw the prosecutrix take about noon Tuesday would have, upon an empty stomach' — she not having partaken of food since noon the day before — certainly produced an intoxication which would have been readily observed by Mrs. Byers.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
1909 OK CR 174, 105 P. 618, 106 P. 618, 3 Okla. Crim. 621, 1909 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 247, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/caple-v-state-oklacrimapp-1909.