Powell v. State

566 So. 2d 1228, 1990 Miss. LEXIS 461, 1990 WL 124901
CourtMississippi Supreme Court
DecidedAugust 15, 1990
DocketNo. 07-KA-58305
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 566 So. 2d 1228 (Powell v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Mississippi Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Powell v. State, 566 So. 2d 1228, 1990 Miss. LEXIS 461, 1990 WL 124901 (Mich. 1990).

Opinion

HAWKINS, Presiding Justice,

for the Court:

Clyde Henry Powell has appealed his conviction in the circuit court of Washington County of rape of a female child under the age of fourteen years, and sentence to life imprisonment.

We find no merit in his assignments of error that there was an erroneous admission of identification testimony by the victim, and that the verdict of the jury was against the overwhelming weight of the evidence, and affirm.

FACTS

On Saturday, January 18, 1986, Rosie (not her real name), a ten-year-old child, lived with her mother Mammie Lee Holmes at 406 South 6th Street in Greenville. Her sister-in-law Terry Lynn Oliver, an adult, lived at 421 North Delta Street.

Around 3:00 p.m. Rosie rode her red bicycle to Mrs. Oliver’s house to inquire the telephone number of Rosie’s sister, Dorothy Holmes, in Columbus, Ohio. Rosie and her cousin Michael Parker had visited just earlier that afternoon with Mrs. Oliver. According to Mrs. Oliver, the two had left together, and Rosie returned alone on her bike — at Michael’s request — to get the telephone number.

En route to Mrs. Oliver’s house on this trip, when she was near the “Thrifty Food Store” on Alexander Street, Rosie heard a voice say, “Hey.” She did not see who it was.

When she got to Mrs. Oliver’s house, Mrs. Oliver did not know the telephone number and Rosie left on her bike headed home. Rosie testified at trial in January, 1987, that when she passed a man in the yard of a house one house away from Thrifty Food Store she heard him say, “Hey, girl, come here.” 1

He was a black man she had never seen before. She stopped and he asked her to go to the store and buy him a stamp. She did not remember how much money he gave her.2 She then went to the store on her bike and purchased a stamp. When she got back to the yard, the man was not there. She knocked on the door and said [1230]*1230she was going to put the money and stamp on a yellow chair which was outside the house.

The man then came to the door with what Rosie testified was a ship made out of something like match sticks. As she was getting on her bike to leave, the man opened the screen door and grabbed her. Rosie yelled at a girl walking down the sidewalk who kept walking.

The man pulled her inside the house and started feeling of her, going down between her legs. He then pulled her into a hallway and into a bedroom. She said the room had a stereo and a lot of shoes and a bed. He pushed her down and told her to take off her clothes. Frightened, she pulled her pants down, and the man pulled them down some more. He unzipped his trousers and “asked me was his penis big.”3

She closed her legs and he opened them and laid down upon her. She then testified:

A. He put his penis in my—
Q. Say it loud again, please darling?
A. (Witness was crying) pause — he put — he put his penis — in my pussy.
Q. He put his penis in your pussy. Okay.
A. (Witness crying)
Q. Are you ready to go on?
A. Yes.

She said it hurt her, and when he finished she had “some white stuff between my legs.”

She then testified:
A. He got up and went to the door and looked out the window and I got back up and tried to put on my clothes, he put me down and pulled down my clothes and then he got back on me and then he got back off and when I got up, fixing to put on my clothes, he went to the bathroom and got me a wet towel and he gave it to me and he said, “here, wipe that stuff away between your legs.” I got the towel and I just — I pulled up my pants.
Q. Once that was over with, did he hand you anything?
A. A dollar bill.

Rosie then testified as follows:

A. He unlocked the door and I ran out and got on my bike and I didn’t look both ways before I crossed the street. I just went on across and I fell off my bike as I was trying to go out on the curb—
Q. You need to slow down just a little bit — fell off your bike as you were going over the curb. Then, what happened?
A. I fell off and then I got back on and I turned the corner and went down Delta Street and I went over to my sister-in-law’s house and she had her baby in her hands. I dropped my bike and I ran up to the porch and I grabbed her and she asked me what was wrong. I said a man got on me. She said, “What man?” Then, I said, “The house down the street.” She said, “Where ‘bout down the street.” I was too scared to answer back.

Mrs. Oliver testified she was standing in her doorway when she saw Rosie coming down the street on her bike. Rosie got in the yard, “jumped off her bike,” grabbed Mrs. Oliver and began “hollering — something — some man was messing with her— had messed with her.” She noticed that one button of Rosie’s jeans was buttoned and her panties were in her pocket. Mrs. Oliver said Rosie was scared, and she telephoned the police.

Just after 4:13 p.m. that day Steve Bing-ham, a corporal and investigator with the Greenville Police Department on patrol at Highway 82 and Colorado Street, received a call to go to North Delta Street to investigate a rape case.

In driving to the house on North Delta Street, as Bingham turned right on Alexander Street, he noticed the defendant Clyde Henry Powell about one house distance [1231]*1231from where Powell lived at 1605 Alexander Street “just casually walking at the time.” Bingham had known Powell since junior high school.

Bingham got to Mrs. Oliver’s house and found another officer there talking. He then questioned Rosie and she and — Bing-ham believed Rosie’s sister — got in the car with him.4 Rosie directed him. Bingham then testified: .

A. When I first arrived at the house, she was a little bit upset. She was being comforted by some of the family members. But, as we were driving — as she was directing me, she was a little bit shaken up but she had stopped her crying and when we got exactly to the house, she said, “that’s it — that’s it.” and I would say in an excited type of voice. I, then, took her back to the house and from that point, the officer took her to DMC [Delta Medical Center].
Q. You took her back to 421 North Delta?
A. Yes, Sir.
Q. Which officer transported her to the Delta Medical Center from there?
A. Officer Joe Johnson, Sir.
Q. I believe Officer Johnson is now with another police department, is that correct?
A. Yes, Sir.
Q. Now, did this end your particular involvement in the case?
A. No, Sir, after she pointed out the house, I went back to the police station and obtained two photos or rather a group of photos of black males, one of which included Clyde Powell.

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Related

MacKbee v. State
575 So. 2d 16 (Mississippi Supreme Court, 1990)
Davis v. State
568 So. 2d 277 (Mississippi Supreme Court, 1990)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
566 So. 2d 1228, 1990 Miss. LEXIS 461, 1990 WL 124901, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/powell-v-state-miss-1990.