State v. Godwin

• Decision Date: 09 December 1924
• Docket Number: 18907.
• Citation: 230 P. 831,131 Wash. 591
• Court: Washington Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE v. GODWIN.

230 P. 831

131 Wash. 591

STATE v. GODWIN.

No. 18907.

Supreme Court of Washington

December 9, 1924

Department 2.

Appeal from Superior Court, Pierce County; Clifford, Judge.

W. A Godwin was convicted of carnal knowledge of a female child under age of consent, and he appeals. Reversed, and new trial awarded.

M. J. Gordon, G. C. Nolte, and A. J. Croteau, all of Tacoma, for appellant.

J. W Selden and J. A. Sorley, both of Tacoma, for the State.

FULLERTON J.

The appellant, Godwin, was convicted of the crime of carnally knowing a female child, the child being at the time of the commission of the offense under the age of consent.

The first assignment of error to be noticed is that the evidence does not justify the verdict of the jury. The date of the commission of the offense was laid as of June 30, 1923, and the appellant's evidence tended somewhat strongly to show that he was not at the scene of the crime at that time. But without going into the evidence in detail, it is enough to say that the evidence on the question was conflicting, and that there was substantial evidence to support the contrary view. The trial court may set aside a verdict on conflicting evidence, but the powers of this court are more limited. We can interfere with the verdict of a jury only where we find no substantial evidence in its support.

Of the trial errors assigned there are two which we think of sufficient moment to require a new trial. The first is that the trial court denied the appellant the right to question the prosecuting witness as to her prior chastity. This was error under the authority of the following cases: State v. Coella, 3 Wash. 99, 28 P. 28; State v Katon, 47 Wash. 1, 91 P. 250; State v. Workman, 66 Wash. 292, 119 P. 751; State v. Jones, 80 Wash. 588, 142 P. 35; State v. Jackson, 83 Wash. 514, 145 P. 470; Gardner v. Spalt, 86 Wash. 146, 149, P. 647; State v. Terry, 99 Wash. 1, 168 P. 513; State v. Pickel, 116 Wash. 600, 200 P. 316, 204 P. 184.

We have not overlooked the argument of the state to the effect that the questions asked the witness were too vague and indefinite to come within the rule of the cited cases. It is true that counsel did not use the more conventional terms in framing the questions, but it would be too much to say that the court did not understand them. If it were thought that the questions were too indefinite for the understanding of the witness, it was within the discretion of the court to cause them to be made more direct, and this should have been the remedy, rather than the remedy of exclusion. But we do not understand that this was the ground on which the court excluded the questions. If we read the record aright, it excluded them because it thought the inquiry immaterial, that it was no defense to the act even though the prosecuting witness had been of previous unchaste habits and character. As matter of law this latter proposition is undoubtedly correct, but this was not the purpose of the inquiry. The evidence of the crime rested largely in the testimony of the particular witness, and the fact to which the questions were directed went to her credibility.

The state in rebuttal was permitted, over the defendant's objection, to introduce a series of letters written by the appellant, addressed in part to the prosecuting witness and in part to other members of her family. The letters were admitted on the theory that they tended to contradict certain statements made by the appellant while on the witness stand. An examination of them shows that none of them directly contradicts his testimony, and it is only by a somewhat remote inference that any of them can be said to do so indirectly. But it is only one or two of them that carry even this latter inference, and only these should have been admitted. On the other side, it is easy to see how the letters might be highly prejudicial to the appellant. They are the letters of an intimate of the family, and contain references and allusions not understandable to one not acquainted with the circumstances under which they were written or the matters to which they relate. An erroneous...