Whittaker v. State

192 So. 2d 472, 43 Ala. App. 465, 1966 Ala. App. LEXIS 554
CourtAlabama Court of Appeals
DecidedNovember 22, 1966
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 192 So. 2d 472 (Whittaker v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Alabama Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Whittaker v. State, 192 So. 2d 472, 43 Ala. App. 465, 1966 Ala. App. LEXIS 554 (Ala. Ct. App. 1966).

Opinion

JOHNSON, Judge.

Appellant was indicted by the Grand Jury of Mobile County, Alabama, on two counts of indecent molestation of Robert Leon Wilson, a male child, who at the time of the alleged act was under the age of sixteen years

On September 27, 1965, the appellant appeared in open court with his attorney and entered a plea of not guilty. Appellant’s first attorney entered a motion to withdraw his appearance and the motion was granted. Whereupon the court appointed another attorney who was relieved of his duty upon oral motion. The court then appointed appellant’s present attorney and a plea of not guilty was filed to each count of the indictment.

After a trial by jury, appellant was found guilty as charged and sentenced by the court to a term of five years in the penitentiary. It is from the.judgment of the court imposing this sentence that this appeal is made. The trial judge refused to give appellant’s requested written charges Nos. 1, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and appellant’s requested charge “A”. Appellant filed a motion for the court to appoint an attorney to represent him in this appeal and requested that he be furnished with a transcript of the evidence, which motion was granted by the court.

The tendency of the evidence presented by the State through witness Robert Leon Wilson, age 11, of Mobile County, Alabama, is that he was enticed by appellant into a room in a house and that appellant “came in the room and locked the door, and then he came back in there with a hammer * * * [467]*467he said he would give me 50 cents and then he said 50 cents was too much and that he would give me a quarter * * * he made me scared * * * he told me if I didn’t pull my pants down he was going to make me do it * * * he said he was going to hit me in the head with that hammer * * he made me pull down my pants and lay on the bed * * * he greased hisself and got on top of me * * * he started going up and down.” Robert stated that he told his sisters about the incident that night and that one of them told his mother who took him to a doctor. He stated that he had since then seen appellant “walking down the street” and had identified him in a police line-up.

On cross-examination, Robert Leon Wilson stated that he had never seen appellant before the incident, which occurred at about 9:00 A.M. on a Sunday; that after the incident, his daddy and his brother took him to appellant’s house and he further testified, “I seen his face in the door” and that he saw his brother talking to appellant. When asked how he described appellant to his family, he replied that he said, “he had a moustache on him.”

Next, Robert’s thirteen year old sister testified that on a Sunday last year, her brother told her what had happened to him and that she told her mother.

Robert’s brother, Felix Wilson, Jr., testified that some time after Christmas last year, on a Sunday, he received a report that something had happened to his brother, and that night his brother directed him to appellant’s house; and that appellant came to the door and said, “My brother went to crying about that was him”. Felix stated that he then got the police and that when he and the police returned, appellant was gone.

On cross-examination, Felix testified that on the Sunday in question his brother had been crying because “he was scared to tell him” and that he was crying “because he didn’t want to go” with him to appellant’s house. When asked if he knew Joe Louis Walker, Felix replied that he knew a “Joe Louis” but he did not know his last name or where he lived and that it could have been a year or more since he had seen him. Felix described this person as being young and probably a little shorter than he but stated that he did not recall whether or not he wore a moustache.

Robert’s mother, Reuther L. Wilson, testified that during March of last year her son had complained that something had been done to him and that she had sent for her son, Felix, and carried Robert to the Mobile General Hospital where he was examined and that after the examination she took care of him. She testified that she did not examine him herself. When asked if there were any pains or troubles, she replied, “Not that I know of.”

On cross-examination, Robert’s mother stated that the boy was very much upset, was crying, scared and did not want to tell her what had happened, nor did he want to show his brother, Felix, where the man lived.

The State’s last witness was Officer William Mingus who testified that Robert Leon Wilson had picked appellant from a police line-up.

Appellant then testified in his own behalf that he was nineteen years old and lived with his mother and “another fellow named Joe Louis Walker” who was about twenty and had been residing there for about six or seven months. Appellant said that Joe Louis was not kin to him but was “a friend of my step-daddy’s”. He also said that his grandmother who lived about three blocks away had helped take care of him.

Appellant stated that on the Sunday in question, he arose at about 8:00; that no one was in the house but Joe Louis who was still sleeping when appellant left the house at 8:30; that he then visited at the house of a friend by the'name of George Washington; and that he arrived at his grandr mother’s house at about 9:00 that morning. [468]*468Here he said he watched a colored church program on his grandmother’s set; went “to the store to get some change for his grandmother” ; and then went to see Rosie Lee McKinney, age twenty, and the mother of his two year old child. He stated that he returned to his mother’s house at about 9:30 that night and when he arrived Joe Louis was not there and that he hadn’t seen him since. He then started watching television at his mother’s house when a little boy and a man came to his front door.

Appellant described Joe Louis as being about his size and said that Joe Louis “is just a little bit heavier than I is and he is got a moustache that comes down all the way down, and a goatbill that comes down and * * * about 145 pounds”. Appellant stated that in March of last year he was not wearing a moustache and that his employer, Providence Hospital, would not allow him to wear a moustache.

Appellant’s mother, Ernestine Ormond, testified that appellant and a boy by the name of Joe Louis Walker were living with her at the time in question, that Joe Louis Walker had a moustache and that he always wore one, but that her son (appellant) had never worn a moustache. She further stated that when she left the house at 7:30 on the morning in question, appellant and Joe Louis Walker were both asleep, that she did not see appellant again until about 8:00 or 8:30 that night, and that she had not seen Joe Louis from that time until the following Christmas Eve night. She stated that Joe Louis wore her son’s shirts and some of his pants.

On cross-examination, appellant’s mother stated that Joe Louis was not too much taller than her son and that they wore the same size clothes. When asked where Joe Louis was now, she answered, “I understand they have him in jail.”

Next, appellant’s grandmother testified that appellant had come to her house before 9:30 on that Sunday morning and that “he didn’t act like nothing was wrong” nor did he appear to be “excited”. She stated that she had never seen appellant with a moustache and “he ain’t never wore no moustache”.

Counsel for appellant contends that the trial court erred in its refusal to give appellant’s requested Charges Nos. 1, 8 and 11.

Refused Charge No.

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Thompson v. State
354 So. 2d 1134 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Alabama, 1977)

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Bluebook (online)
192 So. 2d 472, 43 Ala. App. 465, 1966 Ala. App. LEXIS 554, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/whittaker-v-state-alactapp-1966.