Moore v. State

1972 OK CR 229, 501 P.2d 529, 1972 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 622
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma
DecidedSeptember 20, 1972
DocketA-17407
StatusPublished
Cited by24 cases

This text of 1972 OK CR 229 (Moore 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
Moore v. State, 1972 OK CR 229, 501 P.2d 529, 1972 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 622 (Okla. Ct. App. 1972).

Opinion

BUSSEY, Presiding Judge:

Appellant, Jim Harlan Moore, hereinafter referred to as defendant, was charged, tried and convicted in the District Court of Tulsa County, Oklahoma, for the offense of Sodomy, After Former Conviction of a Felony; his punishment was fixed at thirty-five (35) years imprisonment, and from said judgment and sentence, a timely appeal has been perfected to this Court.

At the trial, David Lane, age eleven, testified that he was the stepson of the defendant. At about 5:30 p. m. on July 16, 1971, the defendant called him into the house and asked him to shine his boots. His mother was in the kitchen and the other children were playing in the backyard. He and the defendant went into the defendant’s bedroom and the defendant locked the door. The defendant told him to take off his clothes and the defendant placed his penis into David’s rectum. David screamed and the defendant placed his hands over his mouth. His mother knocked on the door and said, “What are you doing?” The defendant said, “Wait just a minute” and told David to put his clothes on quickly. He testified that the entire act lasted about thirty minutes. His mother later called him into the house and asked him to tell her the truth about what had happened. David told her what had occurred. He testified that a similar occurrence had happened approximately four years before when he and the defendant were hunting near Leonard. The defendant was gone from the home approximately two years and when he returned similar occurrences happened about ten times. He testified that he was taken to the hospital *531 on a prior occasion by his mother because his rectum was bleeding.

Bertha Ann Hollowell testified that she was the records librarian at Hillcrest Medical Center and identified State’s Exhibit 1 as hospital records.

Dr. Nance Barber testified that she examined David Lane on April 7, 1971. David was brought to the hospital by his mother and complained of passing blood in his bowel movements. She testified that on rectal examination she found “a small crack in the rectal wall, otherwise known as a fissure, at about seven o’clock.” She examined him the following week and he still complained that there was some bleeding but that it was improved. Other appointments were set up for David, which he failed to keep. She testified that after examining the X-rays, she could find nothing to indicate any organic problem that would cause the boy’s bleeding. She further testified that the fissure could have been caused by a hard object being inserted in the rectum.

Elizabeth Melton testified that she was David Lane’s aunt and sister-in-law of the defendant. She testified that after she and her husband had a conversation with David on July 17, 1971, they took him to the juvenile authorities.

Dr. Robert Hudson testified that David Lane was brought to his office by the Child Welfare Department on July 31, 1971. He examined the boy and did not find a fissure on the rectal wall. He testified that a fissure will usually heal itself if allowed to rest, within a week to ten days. He examined the X-rays of David Lane marked State’s Exhibit 1 and testified that in his opinion the fissure was caused by a hard tool, a hard object or foreign object.

For the defense, Jo Ann Moore testified that she was the wife of the defendant and the mother of David Lane. She testified that on the afternoon in question she was at home with a friend, Christine Bodway, and her three children. The defendant went to work that morning and came home sick around 10:00 a. m. He laid down on the divan in the front room and slept there most of the day. She testified that she did not hear the defendant ask David to shine the shoes and denied knocking on the door of the bedroom and asking if he was in there. She testified that the door between the front bedroom and the bathroom was nailed shut and that the door between the kitchen and the back room could not be locked. She denied that David had ever told her anything about any sexual acts with the defendant.

Christine Bodway testified that she went to visit the Moores at approximately 10:00 on the day in question. The defendant was sleeping on the couch when she arrived. She testified that to her knowledge nothing unusual or extraordinary happened between the defendant and David. She did not hear any disturbances nor did she see the defendant or David leave her presence at the same time.

Defendant testified that he went to work the morning of July 6, and was forced to return home about 10:00 because he was feeling ill. He slept intermittently on the couch in the living room during the day. He denied anything unusual happening that day between him and David, as well as denying that he had engaged in other sexual acts with David. He testified that he had been convicted of armed robbery and served two years and two months in prison.

David Lane was called in rebuttal and testified that the door between the kitchen and the bedroom was nailed shut and blocked off until he was taken to the juvenile authorities.

Geraldine Lane, David’s aunt, testified in rebuttal that the door between the kitchen and the bedroom was nailed shut.

The first proposition asserts that the court erred in overruling defendant’s demurrer to the evidence on the ground there was no corroboration to the testimony of the witness David Lee Lane. In the early *532 case of Cole v. State, 84 Okl.Cr. 76, 179 P.2d 176, the Court stated:

“ * * * Although there is no corroboration of the prosecuting witness as to the acts committed by the defendant which constitute the abominable crime of sodomy, if this Court follows the rule applied in rape cases, the conviction may be sustained upon the uncorroborated evidence of the prosecuting witness, unless such testimony appears incredible and so unsubstantial as to make it unworthy of belief. * * * ”

We are of the opinion that the young victim’s testimony was not so incredible or unsubstantial as to make it unworthy of belief, thus requiring corroboration. We further observe that David Lane’s testimony as to prior acts of sodomy was corroborated by the testimony of the doctors. We, therefore, find this proposition to be without merit.

The second proposition contends that 21 O.S., § 886 “is void on its face for unconstitutional overbreadth insofar as it reaches acts protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.” Defendant cites as authority Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 85 S.Ct. 1678, 14 L.Ed.2d 510, wherein the United States Supreme Court declared a Connecticut statute prohibiting the use of contraceptives unconstitutional, holding that private consensual marital relations are protected from regulation by the state through the use of criminal penalties. In discussing Griswold in Warner et al. v. State, Okl.Cr., 489 P.2d 526, we stated:

“ * * * We are of the opinion that the United States Supreme Court, in the landmark case of Griswold v. State of Connecticut, supra, does not prohibit the state’s regulation of sexual promiscuity or misconduct between non-married persons. We, therefore, find this proposition to be without merit.”

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
1972 OK CR 229, 501 P.2d 529, 1972 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 622, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/moore-v-state-oklacrimapp-1972.