Rozier v. State

• Decision Date: 11 January 1938
• Docket Number: 12014.
• Citation: 195 S.E. 172,185 Ga. 317
• Parties: ROZIER v. STATE.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

195 S.E. 172

185 Ga. 317

ROZIER v. STATE.

No. 12014.

Supreme Court of Georgia

January 11, 1938

Error from Superior Court, Ware County; M. D. Dickerson, Judge.

L. L Rozier was convicted of the rape of a seven year old girl and he brings error.

Affirmed.

The defendant was indicted and found guilty, without recommendation, of the rape of a seven year old girl. It was admitted in open court by the defendant and his counsel that the act charged had been committed on the child by a 'male human being.' She identified the defendant as the person who persuaded her to enter his truck when she left her home at night to look for 'little brother'; and testified that he committed the offense out of the city, and had also beaten her. Dr. Seaman testified that, after an examination of the defendant at the request of the court, he thought him of 'low development' and a 'sexual pervert, * * * a type of individual that gets sexual satisfaction other than through normal channels. * * * This man is the type that gets sexual satisfaction out of infliction of pain on other individuals, and is known as the sadist type of sexual pervert. * * * Their desire, particularly the type of sadism, is very strong--that desire is an instinctive emotion. They get emotionally unstable at that time--emotional unstability. * * * I should think that a pervert suffering as I have found this one, if he should decide in his mind to pick up a child here in this town, and have that kind of connection with it, from the time he picked that child up till he reached the spot where he could do it he could stop if he didn't give himself away to self-gratification. In examining this man, in my opinion I found him to be sane, and in my opinion he knows right from wrong. He just hasn't developed his mind to the point that usual, normal individuals develop their mind. I think it was developed to the degree that he knows right from wrong.' In answer to a hypothetical question, stating the facts as to the commission of this offense, and the subsequent return of the victim to a place near her home, and his effort to escape, the witness said, 'I would think he knew he had done wrong, and I think the knowledge that he had done wrong would cause him to escape.' Dr. Walker testified that by order of the judge he had examined the defendant, and that the man was in 'a rather hysterical apathetic state, feigning loss of memory.' Answering hypothetical questions, he said that such a man approximately thirty-eight years old, committing an offense such as stated, 'is a sexual pervert'; that 'in persons who are sexual perverts, where abnormal and intense sexual excitement is manifested periodically, these are instances of a true neurosis or of periodic insanity' that 'when this man's sexual desire is on him, he is not sane'; and that 'he was feigning loss of memory or insanity when I examined him. If I have to narrow it down to whether he is sane or insane, I would say he was sane, but of a low grade of intelligence.' Also, that if the defendant did what was stated, 'I would say that increased creased intensity of sexual desire was so strong with him; it couldn't be overcome by his mentality--he couldn't resist it,' and he is 'lacking in judgment'; and that while 'I don't think that every man who rapes a woman should be considered incompetent and excused,' and 'wouldn't be crazy * * * if he raped a child, he is a pervert,' and 'I think that every man who rapes a child is insane at the time.' Dr. Davis, in answer to hypothetical questions, testified that a person who committed what was alleged to have been done by the defendant 'would be called a sexual pervert, a very degraded sort'; that such a person 'may under ordinary, normal conditions have sufficient mentality to distinguish between right and wrong, but when seized with the intense abnormal, sexual desire, he would entirely lack the necessary mentality to control or resist such desires'; that about two months before the offense he treated the defendant as a patient for what seemed to have been epididymitis, inflammation of the cords that run into the testicle, caused from venereal infection or overuse of his sexual organ, 'didn't notice that he was crazy then,' and 'didn't notice anything wrong with his mind at that time, but he could have been normal at that moment, and then not in an hour's time, * * * a man would be a pervert if he did the things related * * * a sexual pervert * * * he has almost got to have a slight form of neurosis before he is a sexual pervert--not necessarily insane, but temporarily insane'; that a man 'is not sane then if he is under this particular obsession--in other words, the obsession to go out and rape a little girl--he is not sane then'; that 'my theory is the fact that a man who was normal wouldn't commit that kind of crime; the enormity of the crime is why I say that'; and 'I think the defendant was temporarily insane whenever he committed that crime, if he did it.' A deputy sheriff testified that the defendant told him that on...