Reid v. State

1955 OK CR 106, 290 P.2d 775, 1955 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 282
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma
DecidedSeptember 27, 1955
DocketA-12186
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 1955 OK CR 106 (Reid 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
Reid v. State, 1955 OK CR 106, 290 P.2d 775, 1955 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 282 (Okla. Ct. App. 1955).

Opinion

POWELL, Judge.

This is an appeal by William Thomas Reid, Jr., from a conviction in the district court of Oklahoma County of the crime of rape in the first degree, on Caroline John-na Baldwin, also known as Carolyn Treisa, a girl just past 14 years of age. The defendant was 21 years old. The jury fixed the punishment at confinement in the State Penitentiary for a term of 15 years.

On appeal but two propositions are urged in brief: (1) “It is error for trial court to comment, in presence of jury, on weight of the evidence.” (2) “The verdict rendered by the jury and the judgment entered by the court are contrary to the law and not sustained by the evidence.”

The record contains over 400 pages of testimony. The essential problem is the application of the law to the evidence. The State does not cite an authority on the second proposition, and presents its case by way of a two-page brief. The briefs of *777 the parties have not been of much help. The more we have studied the voluminous record, the more complicated from a factual standpoint, has become a case that at first impression seemed simple.

We shall dispose of the first proposition at once.

Verda Treisa, mother of the prosecutrix, in answering a question to which counsel for defendant had not objected, did, as contended, testify to a conclusion. That is to say, she was asked by counsel for the State if she recalled the date of July 7, 1954. She said, “I recall it because of the tragic experience in my life.” Asked what that was, she said: “That is the day that Carolyn was raped.” Whereupon counsel for the defendant objected on the ground that the question was incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial, setting out the specific reason that “it calls for a conclusion of the witness.” The court agreed with the objection of counsel and made some further comment to which counsel for the defendant made no objection and reserved no exception.

We further note that this assignment of error argued in brief was not raised in motion for new trial or in petition in error. It will not be further considered here. White v. State, 81 Okl.Cr. 399, 165 P.2d 151.

Considering now the next question as to whether the evidence was sufficient to sustain the verdict of rape in the first degree, or the included offense of rape in the second degree, 1 we shall, prior to reviewing the evidence, quote certain of the statutory provisions, found to be covered by Tit. 21 O.S.1951, §§ 1111, 1114, 1115 and 1116:

“§ 1111. Rape defined. — Rape is an act of sexual intercourse accomplished with a female, not the wife of the perpetrator, under either of the following circumstances:
“1st. Where the female is under the age of sixteen years.
* ⅝ * * ‡ *
“4th. Where she resists but her resistance is overcome by force and violence.
“5th. Where she is prevented from resistance by threats of immediate and great bodily harm, accompanied by apparent power of execution. * * * ”
§ 1114. Rape in first, degree — Sec ond degree. — Rape committed by a male over eighteen years of age upon a female under the age of fourteen years, or incapable through lunacy or unsoundness of mind of giving legal consent; or accomplished with any female by means of force overcoming her resistance, or by means of threats of immediate and great bodily harm, accompanied by apparent power of execution, preventing such resistance, is rape in the first degree. In all other cases rape is of the second degree.
§ 1115. Punishment for rape in first degree. — Rape in the first degree is punishable by death or imprisonment in the penitentiary, not less than fifteen years, in the discretion of the jury, or in case the jury fail or refuse to fix the punishment then the same shall be pronounced by the court.
§ 1116. Punishment for rape in second degree. — Rape in the second degree is punishable by imprisonment in the [state] penitentiary not less than one year nor more than fifteen years.”

This simply means, as applicable to the within case, that where the female is fourteen years of age but under eighteen years, if she consents or offers no resistance, the act of intercourse constitutes rape in the second degree.

Proceeding to a consideration of the record:

The evidence discloses that the defendant was brought up by his mother, the parents having been divorced when the defendant was quite young. His mother worked and defendant performed labor for contractors, and others, and a younger brother washed dishes in a restaurant. Defendant had an old 1937 model pick-up Ford truck that he *778 used in his work. He had finished high school. He moved with his mother to Oklahoma City when he was about 12 years of age. Defendant admitted on cross-examination that in January, 1951, he plead guilty in Arapaho, Oklahoma, to the crime of larceny of an automobile, and received a three-year suspended sentence. This evidence was admitted as hearing on defendant’s credibility as a witness. He was tall, red-headed young man and weighed around 200 pounds. He was in the habit of visiting DeCqursey’s Dairy Bar on Northeast Twenty-third Street, Oklahoma City, in the evenings, visiting with former school mates and talking with the “car hops”.

Carolyn Johnna Baldwin was horn May 20, 1940, in Tillman County. • Her father died a few months after her birth and several years later her mother married Henry Treisa and moved to Oklahoma City. Carolyn remained in Tillman County at Tipton to live with her step-father’s parents (the Treisas), and attended the Tipton school. She spent the summers with her mother, who was very strict about her dating boys. She wore her hair shoulder length, wore heavy rouge on her lips, and weighed 130 pounds. She and her mother gave her age as 17 when she. obtained the job at De-Coursey’s as a “car hop” on June 1, 1954, and Carolyn had no trouble in passing for that age. She worked until June 7, 1954.

The evidence discloses that the prosecu-trix was known at DeCoursey’s as Carolyn Treisa. She was so carried on the payroll. When she commenced working on June 1 she wore gray slacks and a white blouse, hut for several days, including June 7, she wore the same blouse, — an aqua. It had the second button off, and the top button was left unbuttoned. One of the girls who worked with Carolyn offered her a pin, but she refused, saying that she might want someone “to see something”. Her girl associates testified that Carolyn wore heavy make-up and could have passed for 21. They said that at trial she had cut her hair and dressed modestly, and looked five or six years younger, ' and that they hardly recognized her. They said that Carolyn was- quite proud, of her body, that her ambition was to be a strip-tease dancer,; that a strip-teaser known as “The Cat Girl” was her ideal; that she felt that she had as good a figure as The Cat Girl or Marilyn Monroe. One of the girls said that Carolyn fit her slacks like she had been poured in.

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Bluebook (online)
1955 OK CR 106, 290 P.2d 775, 1955 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 282, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/reid-v-state-oklacrimapp-1955.