Capshaw v. State

186 S.W. 209, 1916 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 424
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Texas
DecidedApril 12, 1916
DocketNo. 3996
StatusPublished

This text of 186 S.W. 209 (Capshaw v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Capshaw v. State, 186 S.W. 209, 1916 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 424 (Tex. 1916).

Opinions

PRENDERGAST, P. J.

Appellant was convicted of seducing Miss Eula Scroggins. This is the second appeal. The first is reported in 73 Tex. Cr. R. 609, 168 S. W. 737. None of the points on which the case was reversed on the first appeal are raised on this.

[1, 2] Appellant contends the evidence was insufficient to sustain the conviction. The statement of facts is somewhat voluminous— 100 typewritten pages. We have carefully read and re-read and studied the statement of facts. In our opinion, the great preponderance of the testimony, without doubt, amply sustained the conviction. It is tnie appellant himself denied a promise of marriage and any act of sexual intercourse. On the other hand, the seduced girl testified positively to both, and she not only was corroborated by positive testimony as to both facts, but also was corroborated by many other facts and circumstances which were unquestionably shown to be true. It is true, that on some material points, there was a conflict in the testimony ; also that the prose-cutrix on an examining trial and at first before the grand jury testified that the two acts of. sexual intercourse by her with appellant about a week apart were had not with her consent, but because she was afraid of him, and he threatened her. She frankly admitted on this trial, as well as on the first, that she had so sworn on said two occasions, and that she then changed her testimony and swore before the grand jury and on said two trials that she changed her testimony on this point, and then swore that both acts were with her consent, giving as a reason for her first so testifying and the change in her testimony that she so at first testified because she did not want her father and mother and other relatives and others to think that she would voluntarily submit and do such an act. All of this was fully developed before the grand jury, and, notwithstanding this conflict and change in her testimony, the grand jury believed her later statements and the explanation she made of why she made the first, and upon their oaths preferred the indictment against appellant. In addition, two petit juries and a trial judge, before whom all this was thrashed out, believed her testimony, and the jury upon their official oaths convicted him, and the trial judge refused him a new trial. These matters are left by law, and must necessarily be, to the jury and the lower court. There is very seldom, if ever, any contested case before us which does not show flat contradictions in the testimony before the jury, and frequently the most important witnesses on each side are impeached by their own previous statements. The question in every such event is for the jury, from a sifting of all the testimony to arrive at the truth, and when the testimony, as in this ease, notwithstanding flat contradictions and impeachment by previous statements sworn to, or otherwise, is sufficient to satisfy the jury,’ and they believe one phase of it and disbelieve the other, this court has no right, and properly has no power, to say that the jury should have believed and found the reverse of what they did. We are not discussing that feature of the law wherein, as a matter of law, the evidence is insufficient to sustain the verdict. That does not arise in this ease.

Of course, it is out of the question for us to give all of the testimony. We will not undertake to do so, but will give the substance of the material testimony which clearly authorized the jury to convict. We will not give the testimony in detail which would have authorized the jury to have acquitted; for the result of the trial and the verdict conclusively show that the jury believed the material incriminating testimony, and did not believe that of the appellant, which would have authorized his acquittal. For instance, if the jury had believed his testimony that he did not promise the prosecutrix to marry her or that he had had no act of intercourse with her, the jury would and should have acquitted him; but they did not believe his testimony on these points or any of his testimony tending to support him as to either of these questions. That was for the jury exclusively and the lower court.

[3] As to the incriminating testimony: We will first state that there is not a scintilla of testimony in this record other than the fact that she had the two acts of intercourse with appellant, being seduced by him under his promise to marry her before made, that in the slightest reflects upon her chastity or virtue. There was no testimony by any witness or any circumstantial testimony what[211]*211ever which showed or tended to show that she ever said or did anything with any person whomsoever that could be construed even an imprudent act or saying at any time on her part prior or subsequent to the time appellant seduced and debauched her. Everything she did or said, as developed by this record, showed that she was a chaste and virtuous girl until this man seduced and debauched her. Appellant himself on direct examination swore:

“There was no reason, cause, or any talk that I had ever had with her or any conversation that led me to believe that I could have had sexual intercourse with her on a road like she said. * * * ”

On cross-examination he swore:

“I at no time had reason to believe she would do that” — that is, have sexual intercourse.

The testimony shows that Miss Eula Scroggins, prosecutrix, was born and lived all of her life in the immediate neighborhood of where this offense was committed. The testimony showed that it was a thickly settled community in the country. Her grandmother and her uncles, the Shofners, her mother’s brothers, had all of her lifetime also lived in the same immediate community. Several of her uncles were married men before this offense was committed. Others of them, though grown men, were unmarried. The visits among her various said relatives back and forth were frequent, and evidently had been from her infancy, and all of her life.

The appellant and his parents and brothers and sisters moved into said immediate neighborhood about December 1, 1912, and lived from that time for about a year between a quarter and one half mile from the Scrog-gins, and also in the same immediate neighborhood of the Shofners. Prosecutrix was then about 17 years of age. Appellant was about 20. The families at once became acquainted, and he at once began his frequent and devoted and exclusive attentions to the prosecutrix. He, and no other, took her back and forth, beginning about December 1st, to the various social functions and entertainments in the neighborhood and at the small towns only a few miles away, from when he began until he succeeded in ruining her. He did not always take her from her home to these various functions, but frequently did, and when he did not he would meet her at them and take her back to her home from them. Prosecutrix and several other witnesses testified positively to these facts, and he himself also in effect so testified. Sñe and several other witnesses testified that appellant went to her home to see her nearly' every Saturday night, or evening, and Sundays, and that during all that time from December 1, 1912, up to in May, 1913, he gave his attention exclusively to prosecutrix, and no other young man waited upon her during all that time. Appellant himself swore:

“I wasn’t going with any other girl at the time I was going with this girl.”

The prosecutrix testified that in January, 1913, she and appellant became engaged to be married and were to marry that fall.

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Kelly v. State
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Bost v. State
144 S.W. 589 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1912)
Carter v. State
127 S.W. 215 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1910)
Odell v. State
184 S.W. 208 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1916)
Mrous v. State
21 S.W. 764 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1893)
Capshaw v. State
166 S.W. 737 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1914)
Putman v. State
16 S.W. 97 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1891)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
186 S.W. 209, 1916 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 424, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/capshaw-v-state-texcrimapp-1916.