People v. Wilson

• Decision Date: 23 July 1963
• Docket Number: Cr. 1879
• Citation: 32 Cal.Rptr. 406,218 Cal.App.2d 564
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of California, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. William L. WILSON, Defendant and Appellant.
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

Page 406

32 Cal.Rptr. 406

218 Cal.App.2d 564

The PEOPLE of the State of California, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. William L. WILSON, Defendant and Appellant.

Cr. 1879.

District Court of Appeal, Fourth District, California.

July 23, 1963.

Harold F. Tyvoll, Del Mar, for defendant and appellant.

Stanley Mosk, Atty. Gen., and William E. James, Asst. Atty. Gen., for plaintiff and respondent.

GRIFFIN, Presiding Justice.

Defendant was convicted by the court of forcible rape (count one), sex perversion (count four), and assault by means likely to produce great bodily injury (count five). A motion for new trial was denied on November 5, 1962 and defendant was committed to the Atascadero State Hospital for observation before final judgment. The appeal from the order denying a new trial is therefore allowable. (Pen.Code § 1237, subdiv. 2; Rule 31 [a], California Rules of Court.)

Defendant first claims that the evidence is not sufficient to sustain a conviction for rape when the complaining witness does not testify that she was not married to the defendant at the time of the alleged offense.

On July 13, 1962, defendant and a Mrs. Loving were bowling. Later, defendant took her to his home. They had an argument. In his desires, he struck and slapped her, shoved her into the bedroom and ordered her into his bed. He forced her, without her consent, into having sexual intercourse with him. Following this act, an act of unconsented oral copulation was had. Defendant then went to the dresser and removed an instrument (handle end of a baseball bat), lubricated it and inserted it into his victim's vagina, and as he twisted it around, Mrs. Loving expressed pain. Defendant told her: 'I want to hurt you. I want you to remember me.' Upon reporting the incident, she was taken to the hospital for treatment and defendant was arrested. Defendant's defense was that the sexual acts were consented to by her and that he had no intention of harming her by use of the baseball bat, and that there was no showing that defendant was not the husband of the complaining witness.

Proof of the non-marital status between defendant and Mrs. Loving need not be shown by direct evidence. Circumstantial evidence is sufficient. (People v. Meraviglia, 73 Cal.App. 402, 407, 238 P. 794.)

Mrs. Loving testified that on the night of the rape she had an interlocutory decree of divorce from Mr. Loving which would not become final until August 30, 1962, and she said that she had never had sexual relations with any other man except her husband and the defendant. This was sufficient to show that at that time defendant could not be and was not legally her husband. Defendant did not testify otherwise.

The only other argument is that the evidence is not sufficient to sustain a conviction for assault by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury because the inserting of the lubricated...