Clowers v. State
| Citation | 184 P. 790,17 Okla.Crim. 155 |
| Decision Date | 01 November 1919 |
| Docket Number | A-3281. |
| Parties | CLOWERS v. STATE. |
| Court | United States State Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma. Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma |
Syllabus by the Court.
In a prosecution for statutory rape, the evidence considered and conviction affirmed.
In a trial for statutory rape, a note or letter was properly admitted, where the prosecutrix testified that she received the same from the defendant, and there was proof that the same was in his handwriting.
Proof that the female was guilty of improper relations with other men is no defense to the charge of statutory rape.
Appeal from District Court, Hughes County; Geo. C. Crump, Judge.
C. F Clowers was convicted of statutory rape, and he appeals. Affirmed.
J. L Skinner, of Holdenville, and Pruiett, Sniggs & Patterson, of Oklahoma City, for plaintiff in error.
S. P Freeling, Atty. Gen., and W. C. Hall, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
C. F Clowers was charged, in an information filed in the district court of Okfuskee county, with the crime of statutory rape, alleged to have been committed upon Alva Strain, a child under 16 years of age. On his application a change of venue was granted, and the case was duly transferred to Hughes county, where upon his trial he was convicted and his punishment fixed at imprisonment in the penitentiary for a term of 5 years. From the judgment rendered on the verdict, he appeals. The alleged errors will be considered in the order presented.
First. It is contended that the evidence is insufficient to sustain the verdict and judgment of conviction. The record shows that at the time charged the defendant was principal of the school at Beardon; that he was a married man, about 29 years of age; that the prosecutrix attended said school, and at the time charged-March, 1917-she was under the age of 16 years, her fifteenth birthday being in February, 1917. The prosecutrix testified in substance as follows:
That she had been attending school at Beardon since she was old enough to go to school, and during the years 1916 and 1917 the defendant was principal or superintendent, and there were four other teachers; that before the close of the term in 1916 the defendant began taking liberties with her, such as hugging and kissing her, and then soliciting her to permit him to have sexual intercourse with her, and she consented; that he arranged to have her meet him out in her father's orchard; that his first and second attempt to accomplish an act of sexual intercourse failed, because it hurt her; that the second week after school started in the fall of 1916 she met him by appointment in her father's barn, and that was the first time he accomplished an act of sexual intercourse; that after that he frequently had sexual intercourse with her in a closet in the schoolhouse and also in the lodge room on the third floor of the schoolhouse, and during that term of school this occurred sometimes every day, and then three or four times a week; that he always used "rubbers," and said he used them to prevent babies from coming; that R. A. Johnston, Will Hendrix, and Opal Frogge told her that they had been watching and knew of her relations with Prof. Clowers, and that it had better be stopped; that unless she would give them the same privilege that she had given him they would tell it; that she refused to do that; that she informed defendant as to what they had said, and he said he ought not to have been so careless, but could not help it now; that they could not prove anything, and, if they did, he could sue them for slander. She also identified an unsigned note as one that she had received from him. No man had ever had sexual intercourse with her, except the defendant. Will Hendrix came into the closet one time after Prof. Clowers had left, and asked her what she was doing in there, and said he came in for a baseball bat or something.
R. A. Johnston testified that he was 17 years of age; that he attended the Beardon school during the years of 1916 and 1917, and was in the same grade as Alva Strain; that some time between the 24th of March and the 1st of April, 1917, he, with Opal Frogge and Bill Hendrix, went into a closet under the stair steps of the school building and found a pallet, and he picked up a comb that he knew belonged to the defendant, so they watched and a day or so later found the door of the closet locked, and they went outside and looked in the window, but could not see anything; that they then went back up the stairway; where there was a hole inside the window; that they crawled into the hole one at a time, and when he looked C. F. Clowers and Alva Strain were having sexual intercourse; that they watched the door, and in five or six minutes Prof. Clowers unlocked the door and came out; then Bill Hendrix went into the closet to get a baseball bat, and Alva Strain was sitting in there on a box; that he saw her there, and Bill Hendrix spoke to her; that the next day, after the third period in the afternoon, he with the same two boys crawled into the same place, one at a time, and he witnessed another act of intercourse, and watched and saw that it was the same two persons; about two days later he again witnessed the same act at the same place and about the same time; that usually before this happened Prof. Clowers left the schoolroom by one door and Alva Strain would leave by the other door; that after they had observed this conduct seven or eight times he in the presence of the other two boys told Miss Strain that they were aware of what was taking place between her and Clowers in the closet below the stairway and that they would like for her to stop this conduct, and she held her face in her hands and thanked us and told us she would. His cross-examination was in part as follows:
Bill Hendrix testified that in the month of March, 1917, he was present when R. A. Johnston picked up the comb from the pallet in the closet under the stairs, and he knew the comb belonged to Prof. Clowers, and the boys agreed to watch the place. The very next day Alva Strain left the schoolroom, and about three minutes later Prof. Clowers left, and he and Johnston and Frogge followed him; that about halfway up the steps there is a window that leaves an opening, and he crawled into this opening and looked into the closet and saw Prof. Clowers and this girl having sexual intercourse. The other boys, one after another, looked through this opening. When Prof. Clowers came out, he went into the closet for a baseball bat, and Alva Strain was sitting in there. He asked her what she was doing down there, and she said "Nothing; I have been down here since the history class; I got so sleepy up there." That the next day they watched, and the same...
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