Blocker v. State

• Decision Date: 24 May 1960
• Docket Number: 4 Div. 401
• Citation: 120 So.2d 924,40 Ala.App. 658
• Parties: Grady BLOCKER v. STATE.
• Court: Alabama Court of Appeals

Page 924

120 So.2d 924

40 Ala.App. 658

Grady BLOCKER v. STATE.

4 Div. 401.

Court of Appeals of Alabama.

May 24, 1960.

G. A. Lindsey, Elba, for appellant.

MacDonald Gallion, Atty. Gen., and John C. Tyson, III, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

CATES, Judge.

Blocker was indicted and convicted of taking immoral, improper or indecent liberties with a child under sixteen years of age by feeling or fondling of her female organs with the intent of arousing lust in either himself or her or in both of them. Act No. 397, September 9, 1955; Slagle v. State, 39 Ala.App. 691, 108 So.2d 180. The trial judge sentenced him to thirty months imprisonment.

On or about July 21, 1958, the complainant, a girl then eleven years old, was roller skating on the pavement of a porch of a warehouse in Elba. She was there with a four-year old boy who was riding a bicycle.

She noticed Blocker drive by in an old car. The next time she saw him the car was parked alongside the building in a graveled parking lot. He asked her if she could teach him to skate. She replied, 'No, sir, you don't have any skates.'

Blocker persuaded her to try skating on the gravel and then on the grass. He got out of the car, walked to her and put his arms 'around' her. He told her to go around to the rear of the warehouse with him. At the corner of the building she turned around and came back along the side of the building.

The complainant was wearing 'short shorts.' As she got about midway to the front of the parking lot at a point about four feet from the warehouse, Blocker approached her putting his arms around her neck and 'kind of around' her back and shoulders. He then put his hands between her legs, touched her private parts and told her to go to the back of the building with him. The girl, who was in tears by then, broke away from him and ran (or skated) home. She complained to her parents.

She next saw Blocker a week later near the Courthouse Square and then again in front of a drugstore. She went to a store where her mother was shopping and told her of finding Blocker.

The day after the assault the sheriff found tire tracks where the complainant said Blocker had parked. A description of Blocker's car given by a deputy sheriff agreed with that to which the girl had testified.

The defendant moved to exclude all the State's evidence. The trial judge denied this motion.

For the defense Blocker produced his uncle, Ralph Daughtry, who testified he was at the defendant's home until three of half past of the afternoon in question. The two left then and drove to the home of another uncle, J. V. Daughtry, in Opp. They stayed there until after six o'clock.

With the brother, they went first to the Bungalow Club, then to The Rebel Club and back to The Bungalow. From there the trio went again to J. V.'s house whence Blocker and Ralph left about a quarter to eight or eight o'clock at night. These visits, if velieved, put Blocker completely away from the scene of his alleged molesting the girl.

Blocker's mother, his sister-in-law, his uncle, J. V., and J. V.'s wife all corroborated Ralph Daughtry's testimony. A number of witnesses to Blocker's good general reputation were called. Two State witnesses were called for further cross-examination and the defense rested.

The State then recalled the complainant and her father in rebuttal. The girl related further details of her identifying the defendant on the Square and of telling her mother of seeing him. The father fixed the time of her coming home crying.

It is obvious from the evidence in this case that the girl neither consented nor cooperated, and hence she is not an accomplice under Code 1940, T. 15, § 307. We consider Fuller v. State, 39 Ala.App. 90, 94 So.2d 788, states the rule as to corroboration which should govern here.

Here, too, the defense presented no evidence to displace the presumption that an infant between the ages of seven and fourteen is incapable of committing a felony. Key v. State, 4 Ala.App. 76, 58 So. 946.

To demonstrate that this statute, at least as here applied, is invalid, Blocker claims two supposed fatal defects: (1) invalidity by reason of ambiguity of definition; and (2) invalidity because of making an otherwise inherantly innocent act illegal solely because of the mental attitude of the actor. For both propositions, we are cited to Bolin v. State, 266 Ala. 256, 96 So.2d 582, and Kahalley v. State...