State v. McGinty, 28609.
Decision Date | 20 June 1942 |
Docket Number | 28609. |
Citation | 126 P.2d 1086,14 Wn.2d 71 |
Parties | STATE v. McGINTY. |
Court | Washington Supreme Court |
Department 1.
William P. McGinty, alias Bill O'Hara, was convicted of the offense of living with a common prostitute, and he appeals.
Judgment reversed and cause remanded with direction to grant a new trial.
Appeal from Superior Court, King County; James T. Lawler, judge.
John F Garvin and J. E. Bakken, both of Seattle, for appellant.
B. Gray Warner and Leo W. Stewart, both of Seattle, for respondent.
Defendant William P. McGinty, was charged with violation of Rem.Rev.Stat.§ 2440, subd. (5), by an information in which it was alleged that, on or about August 5, 1941, he 'unlawfully and feloniously did live with one Patricia O'Hara, the said Patricia O'Hara then and there being a common prostitute.' The jury returned a verdict of guilty. The defendant's motion for a new trial was denied, and, from the judgment and sentence entered on the verdict, he has taken this appeal.
By his assignments of error, appellant questions the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the verdict. The material record evidence bearing on that question may be summarized as follows:
On July 28, 1941, at about 8:30 p.m., two officers of the Seattle police department arrested Patricia O'Hara in the Camp Rooms hotel. According to the testimony of these officers and a Seattle police detective, the place then had the reputation of being a house of prostitution. They found her in a large living room, or parlor, just inside the entrance door dressed in silk pajamas, and they had to wait for her to change her clothing Before they could take her to police headquarters. She was at the time away from her place of residence, which was in the Haddon Hall apartments. She had in her possession, in her pocketbook, a record showing that, about two days Before , she had been examined by a physician, and that, in the words of one of the officers who made the arrest, 'her health had been approved' and was in good condition 'so far as any venereal disease was concerned.' That, the officer further testified, was 'the usual procedure, the girls have one of those.'
Appellant was arrested on August 3 in or near the Seattle police station. The next day, he was questioned by a police detective and signed the following written statement (omitting the heading and the signatures):
The detective testified that, in the argot of the underworld, the expression 'I did not turn this girl out' means that he 'did not induce the girl to enter a life of prostitution'; that the term 'hustling' means practicing prostitution and the terminology is peculiarly characteristic of persons 'engaged in the profession of prostitution' and those connected with it as panderers.
The hotel clerk at Haddon Hall testified that, on June 23, 1941, appellant and Patricia O'Hara came to that establishment together, rented apartment 407, and registered under the name of P. O'Hara; that appellant paid two weeks' rent in advance; that he thereafter saw them together in the place from time to time, and that they occupied the apartment continuously for 'two months or so.'
The essential elements of the crime for which appellant was tried are (1) that, on or about the time charged, he lived with Patricia O'Hara; and (2) that she was then a common prostitute. The first element was clearly established. In fact, appellant, when he took the witness stand, freely admitted it. The evidence as to the second element, while wholly circumstantial, aside from any admissions in the written statement quoted above, we think, was sufficient also. The circumstances, as we have summarized them, are not consistent with any reasonable hypothesis of Patricia O'Hara's innocent presence in a house of prostitution. Moreover, the jury was warranted in considering such circumstances in connection with the reasonable inferences to be drawn from appellant's statement. It reads: (Italics ours.)
Appellant's counsel contend that the state had the burden of proving criminal intent, and that there is no evidence in the record that appellant knew Patricia O'Hara was a common prostitute while he was living with her in Seattle. Assuming, without deciding, that guilty knowledge is an essential element of the crime charged, evidence to support it was supplied by the following testimony of the police detective who had written out the statement which appellant signed:
(Italics ours.)
Appellant assigns as error the admission in evidence of certain articles taken from his room in Haddon Hall by police officers. The officers did not have a search warrant, and appellant maintains that the search violated his constitutional rights. On the other hand, the state's attorneys assert that the search followed appellant's lawful arrest and was permissible as an incident thereof.
It is not necessary for us to go into the question since the only fruits of the search admitted in evidence were articles (photographs and kodak snapshots of appellant and Patricia O'Hara and other persons) which could not have been prejudicial to appellant. They were all quite conventional and proper, and the only thing they tended to prove was acquaintanceship and prior association between the appellant and Patricia O'Hara. That could not have been harmful to his defense, because both he and his attorney admitted at the trial that, for some time Before her arrest, the appellant had been living with her in the room where the search was made.
Finally, appellant claims error in connection with the examination of his wife as a witness for the state. The deputy prosecuting attorney called her, and appellant's attorney assigned his doing so as misconduct. She was interrogated as follows:
'Mr. Garvin: That is objected to as incompetent.'
Then followed a colloquy between the court and counsel, in the course of which the latter approached the bench, and appellant's attorney said:
The trial court reached the conclusion that the state was entitled to question the witness as to the time and place of the marriage, and the following ensued:
'Mr. Garvin: May it be deemed that this goes in under my objection?
'Mr. Stewart: Hearing no objection, I will proceed.
'Mr. Garvin: This is all going in under objection.
'The Court: All right.
'Mr. Stewart: If there is privilege claimed, the privilege the law gives them, I want it claimed.
'Mr. Garvin: I have already claimed it.
'Mr. Stewart: I want it claimed in open court, in the presence of the jury, if it is done.
'The Court: The motion for mistrial will be denied.
'Mr. Garvin: Exception, please.
'The Court: You may have an exception.
'Mr. Garvin: I object to any testimony on the part of this witness, on the ground and for the reason that under the laws of the State of Washington she is incompetent as a witness in this case.
'Mr. Stewart: By reason of the marriage?
'Mr. Garvin: Now, I object to that further, and I again make the same motion for a mistrial, and assign the statement again of counsel, made in open court, as misconduct.
'The Court: The motion will be denied.
'Mr Garvin: Exception,...
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