Schull v. State

304 So. 2d 239, 53 Ala. App. 735, 1974 Ala. Crim. App. LEXIS 1346
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Alabama
DecidedOctober 1, 1974
Docket8 Div. 450
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 304 So. 2d 239 (Schull v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Criminal Appeals of Alabama primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Schull v. State, 304 So. 2d 239, 53 Ala. App. 735, 1974 Ala. Crim. App. LEXIS 1346 (Ala. Ct. App. 1974).

Opinion

HARRIS, Judge.

Schull was convicted of rape and sentenced to life imprisonment. With retained counsel present, he was first arraigned on August 14, 1973. The indictment was read and explained to him and he pleaded not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity. The case was set for trial on August 24, 1973, and continued by agreement. The case was passed several more times and finally came on for trial on September 24, 1973, at which time appellant was re-arraigned. Again the indictment was read and explained and appellant withdrew his former plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. The case went to the jury on a not guilty plea.

The facts are sordid in the extreme. This is one of the most detestable, revolting, and horrible sex crimes imaginable. We are here dealing with an over-sexed ex-convict, who is a sex deviate and pervert.

Between nine and ten o’clock on the night of June 23, 1973, the prosecutrix and her nine-year-old daughter got in a pick-up truck at their home at 905 Austin Street, Southwest, in Decatur, Alabama, and drove to Tommy Shur-Save Market on Carridale Street a few blocks from their home. The prosecutrix parked in front of the market and remained in the truck while her daughter went inside to make a few purchases. While in the store, the daughter saw a neighbor and his daughter shopping. After ten or fifteen minutes, she returned to the truck where her mother was waiting. As she approached the truck, she saw the neighbor and his daughter drive off. She got in their truck and closed the door and was showing her mother the items she had purchased. Suddenly and without warning a man jerked the truck door open on the passenger side and got in the truck. He put a knife to the little girl’s throat and ordered the mother to drive away. She protested and said she had to go back in the store and he told her she had better do what he told her to do, saying, “Do you want your daughter dead or alive?” She cranked the truck and appellant directed *737 her what streets to turn on and they finally wound up at an abandoned house in the woods. During the trip, appellant kept the knife on the girl’s throat. When they got to the abandoned house, appellant ordered prosecutrix to turn off the motor and the lights and she told him no, that she was going to leave. Appellant then and there threatened their lives and ordered the mother and daughter to get out of the truck. They got out and with drawn knife, appellant ordered them in the house and led the little girl in by the hand. He carried them in a room and told prosecutrix that he was going to - her. He forced his private into her rectum for his first orgasm.

Appellant then told her to take her clothes off and she removed everything but her bra. He took her by the arm and forced her to lie on the bare floor. She fought him but was subdued by his superi- or strength and he raped her. He then told her to suck him and she told him she could not. He kept asking her if she wanted her daughter dead or alive. He forced her to take him in her mouth. After that act was completed, he forced the little girl to lay on the floor by her mother and he made the little girl suck him also. He then made her remove her panties and he put his mouth on her vagina. Appellant then got back on top of the prosecutrix and had sexual relations for what seemed to her to be an endless period of time. He made both the mother and daughter put their clothes back on and get in the truck. He directed prosecutrix where to drive. He told her if she reported this to the police that he would get her and her daughter and she told him she would not go to the police.

While driving under his directions (he was sitting next to her on the return trip), she had to stop for a traffic light. She turned to him and asked him where did he want to get out. He turned to her and said to keep driving. During this conversation, she got a good look at him. She noticed that he had long sideburns and a prominent mole on his right cheek. His hair was brownish in color and long in the back. She smelled the odor of alcohol and it was strong. He was filthy and stunk. She continued to drive and came to a stop sign and there was a street light there. Appellant got out and held the door open and looked prosecutrix directly in the face and told her to remember what he said about not going to the police. During this period of time, she got another good face-to-face look at appellant. At trial she made an in-court identification and pointed to the defendant as the man who had done these awful things to her and her daughter. She told the court and the jury that she was positive in her identification and did not have the slightest doubt that she was looking at the guilty party.

The neighbor who was in the market with his daughter when prosecutrix’s daughter entered the store fully corroborated the testimony of prosecutrix and her daughter as to their presence at the market on the occasion in question. The neighbor testified that as he left the store to go to his pick-up truck, he noticed a man leaning on an automobile in the parking lot. He passed within eight (8) feet of the man and spoke to him. He described the man as being five feet six or seven and he had long sideburns and long hair in the back. Three days later he saw this man in a line-up at the jail and identified him as the man who was leaning on the automobile as he went to his truck. He, too, made a positive in-court identification of appellant.

Appellant did not testify but offered alibi witnesses. These witnesses were his mother, step-father, sister, a cousin by marriage, two bingo playing friends of his mother’s, and a married woman with whom appellant was having an affair while she was separated from her husband. This woman had gone back to her husband at the time she testified for appellant, but freely admitted dating him and that she was with him on the night and the times prosecutrix testified that she and her daughter were being tortuously and brutal *738 ly assaulted in the abandoned house in the woods. Had the jury chosen to believe these alibi witnesses, a not guilty verdict would have been in order but the jury rejected the testimony of these witnesses in toto as being unworthy of belief. The conflicting testimony was for the jury and the jury alone.

Prior to trial appellant filed a motion, signed by his attorney, seeking to have him sent to Bryce Hospital for observation and examination by the staff of that hospital to determine his mental condition in relation to his criminal responsibility. A full hearing was had on this motion.

Only two witnesses testified at this hearing in behalf of appellant, a half sister and a cousin. We glean from their testimony that appellant had been in mental hospitals in Michigan and Louisiana for short periods of time. • On two occasions he was in Bryce Hospital but the period of time is not shown. He had been in prison in Alabama for forgery and rape. He was paroled in April, 1973, and in three months committed the rape made the basis of this appeal.

No documentary evidence was produced to confirm the testimony of his sister and cousin that appellant was ever actually in any mental institution. In the main their testimony was the rankest kind of hearsay. At the conclusion of the hearing, the court denied the motion.

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Related

Beauregard v. State
372 So. 2d 37 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Alabama, 1979)
Camp v. State
359 So. 2d 1187 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Alabama, 1978)

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Bluebook (online)
304 So. 2d 239, 53 Ala. App. 735, 1974 Ala. Crim. App. LEXIS 1346, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/schull-v-state-alacrimapp-1974.