State v. Nevels

537 S.W.2d 824, 1976 Mo. App. LEXIS 2460
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedJune 1, 1976
DocketNo. KCD 27673
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 537 S.W.2d 824 (State v. Nevels) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Nevels, 537 S.W.2d 824, 1976 Mo. App. LEXIS 2460 (Mo. Ct. App. 1976).

Opinion

SOMERVILLE, Judge.

This appeal stems from a trial by jury which found defendant guilty of forcible rape (Section 559.260, RSMo 1969) and imposed a ten year sentence.

Defendant’s assignments of error on appeal are two in number: (1) Insufficiency of the state’s evidence to prove penetration; and (2) Inadmissibility of “foreign hair” removed from his pubic area.

[825]*825A synopsis of the evidence is in order. According to the state’s evidence the prose-cutrix (a student at the University of Missouri, Columbia) was alone in her apartment between 7:30 and 8:00 P.M. on March 21, 1974, when she heard someone open the front screen door. Believing the person at the door to be her roommate’s boyfriend, the prosecutrix went to the front door, unlocked and opened it. In doing so, she encountered a black male who was a total stranger to her, and she positively identified him during the trial as the defendant. While peering into the apartment, defendant asked the prosecutrix if anyone else was present. Thereupon, the prosecutrix attempted to close the door. Defendant, however, managed to reach inside the door and grab the prosecutrix by the arm. After doing so he forced his way into the apartment and then closed and locked the front door.

After gaining admittance defendant told the prosecutrix, “Don’t scream or don’t yell or you will make me hurt you.’’ The prose-cutrix was crying and pleading with defendant not to hurt her. Defendant responded to the prosecutrix’s tears and pleas by telling her “that he had friends outside who were watching over the place and watching out for him and that if [she] screamed or made any noise that he would hit [her].” Defendant then ordered the prosecutrix into the bedroom of the apartment. Still in tears, she refused to comply with defendant’s order. Defendant then reached towards his pocket two or three times and “drew his hand back” and admonished the prosecutrix, “Be quiet or I’ll hurt you. You will make me hurt you. Be quiet.” Defendant then grabbed the prose-cutrix by the arm and pushed her towards the bedroom, and, while doing so, told her, “Go back there. Be quiet or I’ll hurt you.”

In the bedroom defendant compelled the prosecutrix to partially disrobe herself, then he “pulled [her] underwear off.” Defendant then pushed the prosecutrix onto the bed, in a prone position, dropped his pants and undershorts, “pulled [the prosecutrix’s] legs apart”, and forced her to have sexual intercourse with him.

Before leaving the apartment, defendant, on three separate occasions, warned the prosecutrix not to tell anyone what happened or he “would come back and get [her].” As soon as the prosecutrix was sure that defendant had left the apartment she locked the front door and then returned to the bedroom and “wiped [herself] off with a Kleenex.” She then called her boyfriend and told him that she had been raped. Her boyfriend arrived at the apartment in about ten minutes. Immediately after his arrival, the prosecutrix telephoned the Columbia Police Department and reported the incident. The police responded to the call and took the prosecutrix to the University of Missouri Medical Center where she was examined at approximately 9:30 P.M. by Dr. Henry Frederick Williams, Chief Resident of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

According to Dr. Williams, a microscopic examination of the fluid content of prosecu-trix’s vagina revealed “eight to ten sperm per high-power field” which were “non-motile”. He did not deem it “unusual” that the sperm were non-motile. In his opinion, the sperm revealed by his microscopic examination resulted from “sexual contact”. Defendant’s cross-examination of Dr. Williams ferreted out that approximately 400 million sperm are normally emitted per ejaculation.

Dr. John Steven Morris, Senior Research Chemist at the University of Missouri Environmental Trace Substances Research Center, testified that a “neutron activation analysis” which he performed revealed that a “foreign hair” identified as having been removed from defendant’s pubic area (facts surrounding its removal will be discussed in greater detail when defendant’s second assignment of error is specifically addressed) was of “common origin” with hair specimens identified as having been removed from the pubic area of the prosecutrix.

Mark Pellham, a forensic chemist employed by the Missouri Highway Patrol in its “crime laboratory”, testified that an “acid phosphatase and an anti-human se[826]*826men sera” test which he performed on the victim’s “underwear” and the Kleenex which she had cleaned herself with revealed the presence of “seminal stains” on both items.

Defendant, after a full explanation by court and counsel of the panoply of rights afforded him as an accused, and the state’s right of cross-examination, voluntarily chose to take the witness stand in his own behalf. According to defendant’s testimony, his presence in the prosecutrix’s apartment on the night in question, without explanation, was by “invitation”; the prosecu-trix began to act “sort of sexy”; she then enticed him into the bedroom where she proceeded to completely disrobe; after disrobing she “laid on the bed” and suggested to defendant that he disrobe; he acquiesced to the extent of disrobing from the waist down, and, after doing so, “got on the bed” and “laid on top” of the prosecutrix; he occupied this position for “five or six minutes”; he denied having sexual intercourse with the prosecutrix or ejaculating while occupying the position heretofore described; he then dressed and left the prosecutrix’s apartment.

Defendant does not attack the quantity or quality of the state’s evidence to support the guilty verdict returned by the jury except as to one narrow aspect — penetration, one of the essential elements of the crime of forcible rape. His argument in this respect is tiered: (1) “It is almost impossible to believe that there could have been penetration prior to ejaculation when only eight to ten non-motile sperm are found in the vagina.”; (2) “[I]t would seem certain that some of the sperm would be motile.”; and (3) “The weight of the evidence in this case is that there was no penetration.” It is patently obvious that the true thrust of defendant’s argument in support of his first assignment of error faults the weight of the evidence respecting penetration. Defendant’s first assignment of error and the argument tendered to support it are inconsistent. The assignment of error questions the sufficiency of the evidence and the argument proffered in its support questions the weight of the evidence.

The weight to be given the evidence pertaining to penetration was within the province of the jury and is not re viewable on appeal. State v. Wright, 476 S.W.2d 581 (Mo.1972); and State v. Tschirner, 504 S.W.2d 302 (Mo.App.1973). It is the sufficiency of the evidence to support a verdict of guilty which is reviewable on appeal, not the weight of the evidence. In testing the sufficiency of the evidence, appellate courts must consider the facts in evidence and all favorable inferences reasonably to be drawn therefrom in the light most favorable to the state, and reject all contrary facts and inferences. State v. Gantt, 504 S.W.2d 295 (Mo.App.1973); State v. Whaley, 512 S.W.2d 431 (Mo.App.1974); and State v. Morris,

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Related

State v. Leigh
580 S.W.2d 536 (Missouri Court of Appeals, 1979)
State v. Patterson
569 S.W.2d 266 (Missouri Court of Appeals, 1978)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
537 S.W.2d 824, 1976 Mo. App. LEXIS 2460, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-nevels-moctapp-1976.