Robinson v. State

1948 OK CR 79, 197 P.2d 517, 87 Okla. Crim. 267, 1948 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 227
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma
DecidedSeptember 8, 1948
DocketNo. A-10802.
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 1948 OK CR 79 (Robinson 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
Robinson v. State, 1948 OK CR 79, 197 P.2d 517, 87 Okla. Crim. 267, 1948 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 227 (Okla. Ct. App. 1948).

Opinion

BAREFOOT, P. J.

Defendant, Louis Robinson, was charged in the district court of Atoka, county with the crime of rape in the first degree; was tried, convicted and sentenced to serve a term of 25 years in the State Penitentiary, and has appealed.

Counsel representing defendant in this appeal did not appear in the trial of the case. Defendant’s brief does not present any question of law, but contends that the facts are not sufficient to sustain the judgment and sentence; and that counsel appointed were not given proper time to prepare the case for trial; and that the judgment and sentence is excessive.

These questions require a brief statement of the facts, as revealed by the record.

Counsel for defendant state that this case was tried on May 14, 1946, just before the primary election, and that politics were at a fever heat at that time. It is further stated: “the judge had opposition, the county attorney was opposed, and there were three candidates in the sheriff’s race, one of them being a brother-in-law of the defendant.”

We have carefully examined the record and we find nothing therein to indicate that any political issue was in any way involved, and as far as this court is concern *270 ed the case will be considered only in the light of the law and the evidence.

It appears that the prosecuting witness, Helen Davis, age sixteen years, had been employed in New Orleans, La., at Woolworth’s department store for a period of about two years. While working there she met Catherine Lane, a young lady whose home was in Atoka, and who also worked at the department store. These two young ladies decided to come to Oklahoma, to visit at the home of Miss Lane for a short time, with her family, and then go to Tulsa to secure work. They visited in Atoka about a week at the home of Miss Lane and her relatives. During that time they went to some dances, and drank beer at various places. A night or two before the alleged crime was committed, Helen Davis checked in at a hotel in Atoka, and testified that she had planned to leave the next day for Tulsa.

On Saturday night, March 23, 1946, both of the girls took a taxi to Coalgate, Okla., to attend a dance. From Coalgate they went to Lehigh, where they consumed two or three bottles of beer. They were alone, unescorted. They returned to Atoka in a taxicab about 1:30 Sunday morning, March 24, 1946. They first went to the cafe at the bus station, and decided not to spend the night at the hotel, but to get a cab driver whom they knew to take them to the home of one of Miss Lane’s relatives, about a mile and a half east of Atoka. Miss Lane remained at the bus station, and the prosecutrix got in a taxi and went to the home of Raymond Wilson, a taxi driver, to get him to drive them to the home of the relative in the country. When prosecutrix returned to the bus station with Raymond Wilson, the defendant appeared in his truck, and had a talk with Raymond Wilson. Raymond Wilson went into the cafe, presumably *271 to get Catherine Lane. According to the testimony of the prosecutrix, defendant immediately forced her into his truck, threatening to kill her if she made an outcry, and then at a fast rate of speed, drove south of town a mile or so, and then turned off on a country road, where he stopped his truck. She testified that defendant was driving at such a fast rate of speed she was unable to get out of the truck, but that she tried to do so. When defendant stopped she got out of the truck, but the defendant also got out and forced her back in the truck and forcibly and against hei' will raped and ravished her.

The defendant then drove back to town and stopped his truck at the filling station next to the bus station, and let the prosecutrix out. She entered the bus station, and according to the evidence of Catherine Lane and Roy Kyle, the night policeman at Atoka who was in the bus station at the time, she was in a very nervous and disturbed condition and crying a great deal. The incident was reported to Officer Kyle and another officer, who got in communication with the sheriff of Atoka county. The prosecutrix was immediately taken to the hospital, where she spent the night. The next morning she was examined by Dr. Cotton, who testified that she had liad intercourse recently; that her private parts were badly torn and bruised, and that her hymen was broken. He also testified to a bruised place on her leg. The panties which she was wearing were delivered to the sheriff on Sunday, March 24th, and were introduced in evidence. They were torn and bloody.

The evidence on the part of the state also revealed that defendant had come into a cafe in Atoka about two days prior to this time, where prosecutrix and Catherine Lane and her sister Donajean Lane Avere sitting at the counter, and the defendant remarked to one of *272 the Lane girls that the prosecutrix had pretty eyes and hair. To this remark she had replied that he was silly.

Catherine Lane testified and corroborated the testimony of prosecutrix in all details leading up to the commission of the crime, and of her return to the cafe, and of her being in a nervous condition and crying, and of her reporting what had happened to night policeman Boy Kyle.

Roy Kyle testified to prosecutrix entering the bus station, and that “she was crying and upset.” He testified that she made a report to him, and he talked with Sheriff McBride over the phone, and took prosecutrix to the hospital; that the nurse talked to Dr. Cotton and was told to put prosecutrix to bed and he would be right down.

Sheriff L. O. McBride testified that he received a call from night policeman Roy Kyle about 2 a. m., and that he did not consider it any use to go down until the next morning. He then called the hospital. Prose-cutrix left the hospital about 12 o’clock noon on Sunday, the 24th, and came to his office. She was accompanied by Catherine Lane. The court sustained an objection to any conversation between the sheriff and the prosecutrix. The sheriff was permitted to testify that prosecutrix was requested to remove her “panties” and leave them at his office to be used as evidence. On the afternoon of March 24th, (Sunday) he, in company with prosecutrix Helen Davis and Catherine Lane, went out on the Wapanucka road for the purpose of locating the place where prosecutrix had reported she had been assaulted. After turning off the main highway, he found a place “Avhere there had been a car pulled out to the side of the road and stopped and pulled back in the *273 road.” He then drove down the road approximately 100 yards where another car had pulled out on the Bermuda grass, and there found a condrum lying on the grass which he said had apparenty been recently used in intercourse. He returned to Atoka and in a few days in company with the county judge of Atoka, county took prosecutrix to Tecumseh, to the state training school for girls, where she remained until brought to Atoka to testify at the trial of the case. Her friend Catherine Lane was permitted to go to Tecumseh and remain there until the trial.

Defendant Louis Robinson testified that he had seen the prosecutrix with the Lane girls several days before the alleged crime at a cafe in Atoka, as testified to by the prosecutrix and the Lane girls.

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Related

Henderson v. State
1963 OK CR 68 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma, 1963)
Riddle v. State
1962 OK CR 98 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma, 1962)
De Wolf v. State
1952 OK CR 70 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma, 1952)
DeWolf v. State
245 P.2d 107 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma, 1952)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
1948 OK CR 79, 197 P.2d 517, 87 Okla. Crim. 267, 1948 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 227, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/robinson-v-state-oklacrimapp-1948.