Cox v. State

1954 OK CR 60, 270 P.2d 373, 1954 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 135
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma
DecidedMay 5, 1954
DocketA-11967
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 1954 OK CR 60 (Cox 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
Cox v. State, 1954 OK CR 60, 270 P.2d 373, 1954 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 135 (Okla. Ct. App. 1954).

Opinion

' JONES, Judge.

The defendant Earl James Cox was charged by an information filed in the Common .Pleas Court of Oklahoma County with contributing to the delinquency of a minor; the information charging in substance that the défendant was the father *375 of one Carol Joy Cox, a female 16 years of age, and that the defendant by his acts, suggestions, and course of conduct did instigate, stimulate, and promote the said Carol Cox to become a delinquent child and cause her to visit beer taverns, drink intoxicating liquors, and associate with immoral persons, etc. The defendant was found guilty by verdict of the jury and sentenced to serve one year in the county jail and pay a fine of $500.

The facts in the case came to light after Carol Cox, a 16 year old girl, attempted to commit suicide by taking 48 aspirin tablets at one time. She was rushed to the hospital and, while recuperating, detailed to the officers a sordid tale of lewdness and immorality in which she allegedly engaged at the suggestion of her father.

The proof of the State showed that Carol Joy Cox was 16 years of age, she lived in an apartment with her father, her mother, and a prostitute by the name of Naomi.Young. Her mother was a prostitute and at the time Carol Cox took the 48 aspirin tablets, she was filling a date with a man. Carol testified that her father, her mother, and Naomi Young all slept in the same bed every night while she slept on a small bed in the kitchen. She had filled dates with men and her father told her how to conduct herself so as to procure money from them.' She had seen her fath'er have sexual relations with Naomi Young in her presence. Her father told her of one Bill Echols, a sex pervert, and took her in his automobile to a beer tavern and told her how to act to get a date with Echols. She went with Echols to a room which he -occupied, Echols -then dressed as a woman, and at Echols suggestion, Carol Cox chained him with a log chain to the bed and padlocked him with five padlocks. She then tortured Echols at his suggestion by holding burning cigarettes to his flesh and also heating a metal clotheshanger and applying it to his flesh. She searched Echols’ pocketbook and took $19 and fled, leaving him chained on his bed. She delivered the money to her father.

The night before she took the 48 aspirin tablets, she spent the night in bed with a sailor at an apartment house. The owner of the apartment corroborated this part of her testimony by testifying that Carol and the sailor came to the apartment and represented that they had just been married and rented the apartment from her. After the attempted suicide and before the trial, Carol Joy Cox was adjudged to be a delinquent child, and was committed to the State Girls’ Training School at Tecumseh. She was an inmate of that institution at the time of trial.

Raleigh Fernandez, Jr., testified that he went under the alias of Bill Echols. He verified the testimony of Carol Cox that he was a type of sex pervert known as a masochist, and that he was unable to have normal sex relations,, but received satisfaction from being physically tortured by a member of the opposite sex. He testified fully to the occurrence where Carol Cox chained him and tortured him, as she related. He further testified that a day or two after the occurrence, he had a conversation with the defendant in which the defendant demanded money from him under the threat of exposing him as a pervert.

The defendant testified that he had had trouble handling his daughter Carol Cox for about two years before charges were filed against him; that he was a bricklayer, and had never suggested to his daughter that she have a dáte with- any man. On cross examination, he admitted that he slept with Naomi Young, the prostitute. He denied, however, that he ever had sex relations with her in the presence of his wife, but that he only slept with her at the Keys Hotel. He admitted giving a written, signed statement to the officers in which he admitted having sexual intercourse with Naomi Young in the presence of his wife, and further, that he had seen his wife have sexual intercourse with other men in his presence. He admitted that he had been convicted once of burglary and had served some time in the state penitentiary in Kansas.

The record is replete with testimony that shows the defendant was a very depraved, immoral character, whose chief pursuit in life was pandering for his wife, his daughter, and Naomi Young.

*376 In the case of Lewis v. State, ?0 Okl.Cr. 203, 212 P.2d.l48, 149, this court held:

“The preventive and protective nature of the Juvenile Statutes require that they be liberally construed in order that their usefulness and strength . may not be impaired.
“Any willful suggestion, act, or course of conduct, knowingly committed by a person, which tends to foster, animate, incite, stimulate, embolden, instigate, promote, or advance a child to become a juvenile delinquent, is within statute defining misdemeanor of contributing to child’s delinquency.
. “The purpose of the statute making it an offense to contribute to the delinquency of a minor is to protect youth from evil and designing persons who would lead them astray.”

The evidence in this case is much stronger than that in Lewis v. State, supra, or Wallin v. State, 84 Okl.Cr. 194, 182 P.2d 788, or McGowan v. State, 83 Okl.Cr. 310, 173 P.2d 227, 176 P.2d 837.

In McGowan v. State, supra, it was held:

. “It is a criminal offense in this State . .for one to knowingly or wilfully cause, aid, abet or encourage a minor to be, to remain or to become a delinquent child. Tit. 21 O.S.1941 § 856.
■ “(a) ‘Minor’ includes a male or female person who shall not have arrived at the age of 18 years' at the time of the commission of the offense.
“(b) ‘Encourage’ includes a wilful and intentional neglect to do that which will directly tend to prevent such act or acts of delinquency on the part of such minor, when the person accused shall have been able to do so.
“A delinquent child includes a minor who has been or is violating any penal statute of this state, or who is committing any one or more of the 'following acts:
“(a) Associating with thieves, vicious or immoral persons.
(b) Frequenting a house of ill repute.- ‘ .
“(c) Wilfully, lewdly, or lasciviously exposing his or her person, or private parts thereof, in- any place, public or private, in such manner-as to be offensive to decency, or calculated to exT cite vicious or lewd thoughts.”

The evidence was abundantly sufficient -to support the conviction.

It is contended that the court erred in admitting in evidence certain nude pictures of • defendant’s wife and Naomi Young which were found on his person at the time of his arrest. The record shows that the defendant testified that he }md set a good example for his daughter and was a good, moral man.

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Bluebook (online)
1954 OK CR 60, 270 P.2d 373, 1954 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 135, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/cox-v-state-oklacrimapp-1954.