Pleasant D. Farrar v. United States

275 F.2d 868

• Court: Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
• Decided: February 18, 1960
• Docket: 15223_1
• Status: Published

Opinions

EDGERTON, Circuit Judge.

Appellant, charged with rape, waived a jury trial and was convicted by a judge.

The complaining witness was an 18-year old girl to whom intercourse was not a new experience. Late at night appellant, a stranger to the girl, accosted her in a street, and they walked together two or three blocks to his room. They undressed and had intercourse. About 45 minutes later they had intercourse again. During the interval, he left the room and brought her a drink of water at her request and poured some whiskey. Finally she partly dressed, went to a bathroom, “turned both spigots on”, left the building, went to a fire station, and said she had been raped. Police were called and took her back to appellant’s room. He at first said he did not know her, but presently admitted he had intercourse with her. So much is undisputed.

The girl testified at appellant’s trial that she walked with him to his room, and undressed, because he threatened to kill her if she refused to do so. But she did not testify that her taking part in intercourse was induced by those threats, or by words of any sort. She testified to the contrary. When she was asked, “how did you happen to have this second intercourse with Mr. Farrar?”, she replied: “He made me have the second the same as the first. Q. What did he say to you? A. He didn’t say anything. Every time he got ready to have intercourse with me, he put the knife around my neck.”

She testified that he had a knife in his hand, and constantly pressed it against her, all the time they were walking together through the streets, through the door into the house, and upstairs to his room,¹ and that he had it in his hand much of the time she was in his room.² Yet she repeatedly testified that she never saw it.³ There were lights in the streets. There was a light in the room. The girl’s eyes were not closed and she was “looking at him.” Neither the girl nor her clothing was marked by a knife. The police promptly searched the room. No knife was ever found.

It is nearly or quite incredible that appellant could have used a knife as extensively as the girl said he did without her ever seeing it. It is so nearly incredible that a reasonable inference, if not the only reasonable inference, from the testimony of the girl herself, is that appellant did not use a knife. And there is no evidence that her participation in intercourse was induced by any other kind of force or threat.

She afterwards accepted $15 from a girl friend of appellant. She gave a receipt, in her own handwriting, which was produced in court. On the witness stand, she admitted that she wrote the receipt but denied that she got the money.

The appellant testified that he never threatened the girl, with a knife or otherwise ;4 that he promised to pay her; that they had intercourse with her consent; and that he did not pay her. He said: “I didn’t give her anything; I promised it to her.” The girl testified more than once that he promised to pay her: “He said he would give me some money. * * He said he would give me anything, anything I wanted. Those were the words he used.” She did not testify that he kept his promise.

The theory of the defense is that she became angry because he broke his promise and that she therefore accused him of rape. In the light of all the conflicting evidence, this hypothesis seems to us at least as likely as any. With deference to those who think otherwise, we are obliged to say that in our opinion it cannot reasonably be regarded as proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the appellant was guilty of rape. “We must reverse a criminal conviction when it is ‘clear to us that upon the evidence * * * a reasonable mind must necessarily have had a reasonable doubt as to * * * guilt.’ ”⁵ The conviction is therefore reversed and the case remanded to the District Court with directions to enter a judgment of acquittal.

Reversed.

1 . “So after we got inside the door, he walked me up the stairs to the second floor. * * *

“Q. At the time you got up to the door, were you aware of this sharp instrument? A. Yes, he had it.

“The Court: How do you know he had it?

“The Witness: Because he kept it there (indicating).

“The Court: During this walk along the street?

“The Witness: And up to the door, yes.

“.By Mr. Stevas: Q. Is this while you were at the main door of the building? A. Yes, and also until we got to his room.

“Q. Where was the room you went to? A. It was up on the second floor *

2 . E. g., when he told her to take her clothes off; “Was he still standing there with his knife around your neck? A. He had it in his left hand.

“Q. And you say you didn’t see it? A. I wasn’t trying to see it. * * * When I was sitting on the bed, he put the knife to my neck, like around like that (indicating). I think it was a knife; I didn’t turn around to see what it was. “Q. After you stood up, wbat happened?

A. He told me to pull off my clothes.

“Q. What did he do? Was ho doing anything? A. He stood up there with the knife in his hand.”

3 . E. g., “The Court: Did you ever see, not feel — Did you ever see what you thought was a knife or any kind of sharp instrument at any time while you were with the defendant?

“The Witness: I will toll you the truth, I never did see it but I felt it.”

4 . Irma Smith, a policewoman, testified that appellant told the police he “asked [the girl] to take her clothes off and to get into bed” and that he “said at that time he might have held the knife against her neck.” But Policeman Machie denied that appellant made such a statement: “The Court: He did not say he might have held a knife to her; he told you he might have said he might cut her if she didn’t go with him; is that right? The Witness: Those were his words * Appellant denied both accounts of what he said to the police. He testified: “The officer asked me what did I say. The secretary was taking down what he asked me more or less and I said I didn’t say that, and she still took it down.”

5 . Hopkins v. United States, 107 U.S.App. D.C. -, 275 F.2d 155; quoting Cooper v. United States, 94 U.S.App.D.C. 343, 345, 218 F.2d 39, 41, and citing other cases.

In several of the cases cited in Hopkins, as in the present case, the defendant’s guilt would have been clear beyond a reasonable doubt if the veracity of an essential witness had been unquestionable. Benton v. United States, 88 U.S.App.D.C. 158, 188 F.2d 625; Kelley v. United States, 90 U.S.App.D.C. 125, 194 F.2d 150; Wilson v. United States, 1959, 106 U.S.App.D.C. 226, 271 F.2d 492.

Decisions sustaining particular verdicts are sometimes accompanied by dicta that all verdicts must be sustained. Decisions rejecting particular verdicts prove the contrary. So does the practice of directing verdicts.