Case v. Commonwealth

• Decision Date: 23 June 1950
• Citation: 313 Ky. 374
• Parties: Case v. Commonwealth
• Court: United States State Supreme Court — District of Kentucky

313 Ky. 374

Case v. Commonwealth

Court of Appeals of Kentucky.

June 23, 1950.

Walter Case was convicted in the Circuit Court of McCracken County, Holland G. Bryan, J., of indecent exposure, and he appealed. The Court of Appeals, Helm, J., held that indictment properly charged the offense of indecent exposure at common law, but that evidence was insufficient to sustain the conviction.

Reversed.

1. Obscenity. — Indecent exposure is a criminal offense at common law.

2. Obscenity. — Indictment charging that defendant wilfully, unlawfully, and knowingly exposed his person at certain place in city, properly charged the offense of indecent exposure at common law.

3. Obscenity. — "Indecent exposure" must either be in the actual presence and sight of others or in such a place or under such circumstances that the exhibition is liable to be seen by others. and is presumably made for that purpose, or with reckless or criminal disregard of the decencies of life, and is not merely inadvertent or accidental.

4. Obscenity. — Evidence was insufficient to sustain conviction for indecent exposure because of failure to establish that defendant intentionally, wilfully, or designedly exposed his person.

L.B. Alexander and Jack E. Fisher, for appellant.

A.E. Funk, Attorney General and Walter C. Herdman, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.

Before Holland G. Bryan, Judge

JUDGE HELM.

Reversing.

Appellant, Walter Case, charged with indecent exposure, was found guilty and his punishment fixed at a fine of $500 and imprisonment in the county jail for a period of six months. He appeals.

The indictment charges that appellant wilfully, unlawfully and knowingly exposed his person at or near the intersection of 28th and Jones Streets in Paducah. Appellant is a mechanic. His home is on the southwest corner of 28th and Jones Street; his garage or workshop is on the northwest corner of 28th and Jones Street. The garage has a door facing Jones Street; the door faces toward his home. Jones Street, from 29th to 28th Street, is an unimproved street — just a lane. About the middle of the block is a bridge.

Two young women were walking together along this lane in the afternoon of a day some time in the summer of 1948. One of them says that she saw appellant a few feet outside of one of his garage doors on Jones Street; that he had his trousers undone and was exposing himself. She was just north of the bridge in the lane when she saw him. She just happened to "glance over there and see him." He did not do anything to attract her attention to him. The other young woman, who lived at 2900 Jones Street, says that she glanced up and saw appellant standing just inside the door...