Davis v. State, 50978
| Decision Date | 07 February 1979 |
| Docket Number | No. 50978,50978 |
| Citation | 367 So.2d 445 |
| Parties | Charles Earl DAVIS v. STATE of Mississippi. |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
Oscar P. LaBarre, Vicksburg, for appellant.
A. F. Summer, Atty. Gen. by Calvin Coolidge Williams, Jr., Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., Jackson, for appellee.
Before SMITH, SUGG and COFER, JJ.
In this case, Charles Earl Davis was tried in the Circuit Court of Warren County upon an indictment charging him with having committed the "crime against nature" in that he had engaged in unnatural sexual intercourse with a female child. Mississippi Code Annotated section 97-29-59 (1972). He was convicted and sentenced to eight years imprisonment. At the time of the trial, the victim was a female child, eleven years of age, in the fifth grade at school. Appellant's conviction rests largely upon the testimony of this child.
It is first assigned as error that the trial court erred in allowing the child to testify, "When she demonstrated on examination by the court that she did not understand or appreciate the sanctity of the oath or the obligation to tell the truth."
We have carefully examined the record as it relates to the assignment and have concluded that the trial judge was justified, following examination of the youthful witness, in finding that (1) she was competent to testify and (2) understood her obligation to tell the truth. There was no abuse of discretion in permitting her to testify. Moreover, a review of her testimony, in response to both direct and cross-examination, gives no support to the contention that she was mentally or otherwise incapable of testifying rationally and understandingly. On the contrary, her testimony was clear and the jury was within its prerogative in accepting it as true. There is no merit in this assignment of error.
The second assignment advances the proposition that Mississippi Code Annotated section 97-29-59 (1972) is unconstitutional in that (1) it discriminates against persons engaging in sexual practices of the kind alleged to have been employed by appellant and (2) the trial judge has an unconstitutionally wide discretion in the range of punishments he may impose. We find no merit in either of these propositions. State v. Mays, 329 So.2d 65 (Miss.1976).
In the third assignment, appellant contends that it was error to permit the victim to testify that appellant had subjected her to the same thing on former occasions. Under the circumstances and in view of the...
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Mitchell v. State, 57746
...this Court's previous holdings in Otis v. State, 418 So.2d 65 (Miss.1982), Speagle v. State, 390 So.2d 990 (Miss.1980), Davis v. State, 367 So.2d 445 (Miss.1979), and Brooks v. State, 242 So.2d 865 (Miss.1971). These cases all held that evidence of other acts of sexual relations between the......
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...468 (Miss.1986); Hicks v. State, 441 So.2d 1359, 1360-61 (Miss.1983); Speagle v. State, 390 So.2d 990, 993 (Miss.1980); Davis v. State, 367 So.2d 445, 446 (Miss.1979). Counsel for appellant called appellant's wife, the mother of the victim, who testified that at the time of the alleged offe......
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Crawford v. State, No. 1998-KA-01578-SCT.
...previous holdings on this issue in Otis v. State, 418 So.2d 65 (Miss. 1982),Speagle v. State, 390 So.2d 990 (Miss.1980),Davis v. State, 367 So.2d 445 (Miss.1979), and Brooks v. State, 242 So.2d 865 (Miss.1971), and held that those cases control the posture of this particular issue. In all o......
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Coates v. State, 55,784
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Narrative and jurisprudence in state courts: the example of constitutional challenges to sex conduct regulation.
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