Sudlow v. State, 52945
| Decision Date | 22 October 1976 |
| Docket Number | No. 52945,No. 3,52945,3 |
| Parties | C. W. SUDLOW v. The STATE |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
Paul E. Cormier, Leonard N. Steinberg, Forest Park, for appellant.
William H. Ison, Dist. Atty., Michael D. Anderson, Asst. Dist. Atty., Jonesboro, for appellee.
The defendant was tried and convicted for kidnapping and aggravated sodomy. The testimony in brief is that the defendant assaulted the prosecuting witness around midnight, August 28, 1975, as she was leaving her automobile in her apartment complex, that he was violent, threatened her if she resisted, and eventually kidnapped and coerced her into an act of oral sex. The defendant admitted the sex act but based his defense on the ground that it was voluntary.
The state offered testimony of three witnesses who had in the past three and a half months been assaulted and raped (or escaped a rape attempt) in the same general Atlanta area, all of whom identified Sudlow as the aggressor. One of these was seized on August 7, 1975, after parking her car in her apartment complex about midnight and the defendant forcibly raped her. The second was attacked after parking her car in the same apartment complex about 1:30 a.m. on July 29 but managed to escape, and the remaining witness, who was assaulted as she entered her car in a shopping center parking lot at about 9:30 p.m. on May 15, 1975, was attempted to be kidnapped by the defendant driving her car away, but with the help of friends managed to escape from the car, which the defendant then abandoned. All of this testimony was objected to as relating to independent criminal transactions which wrongfully put the defendant's character in issue. Held:
Ever since the landmark decision of Bacon v. State, 209 Ga. 261, 71 S.E.2d 615 this court and the Supreme Court have scrupulously upheld the principle that evidence of other crimes is ordinarily both irrelevant and prejudicial and, except where it comes under a clearly defined exception to the rule, its admission is reversible error. This means that there must be shown some logical connection between the two from which it can be said that 'proof of the one tends to establish the other.' Ordinarily, the mere fact that the crimes are of the same genre (as the multiple burglaries in the Bacon case) is insufficient. But where forcible sexual assaults are involved, there is at least much sociological evidence to support the conclusion that this type of deviant sexual behavior is sufficiently isolated abnormality so that proof of the propensity of the defendant to engage in it is at least admissible, and to this extent 'proof of the one tends to establish the other.' 'There are exceptions to this (other crimes) rule, and these exceptions have been rather liberally extended in cases of sexual crimes.' Hunt v. State, 233 Ga. 329, 330, 211 S.E.2d 288, 290. Larkins v. State, 230 Ga. 418, 197 S.E.2d 367, was a rape prosecution the the conviction in which was reversed because...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
McBee v. State
...request to stop. See Farley v. State, 265 Ga. at 623-624, 458 S.E.2d 643 and cases cited therein; see also Sudlow v. State, 140 Ga.App. 146, 147, 230 S.E.2d 106 (1976) (evidence of a previous assault "is justifiable rebuttal evidence where the defendant admits the transaction but denies the......
-
Echols v. State
...latter. Clemson v. State, 239 Ga. 357(3), 236 S.E.2d 663. This exception has been liberally extended in sex crimes (Sudlow v. State, 140 Ga.App. 146, 147, 230 S.E.2d 106), for the purpose of identifying the accused by showing common motive, plan, scheme, bent of mind, or course of conduct. ......
-
Cooper v. State, s. 71907
...to the "other crimes" rule and these exceptions have been rather liberally extended in case of sexual crimes. Sudlow v. State, 140 Ga.App. 146, 147, 230 S.E.2d 106. In many such cases, the issue turns into a swearing contest between the victim and the accused as to what occurred. In such a ......
-
Allen v. State, 58875
...bent of mind. See Wright v. State, 184 Ga. 62, 70-71, 190 S.E. 663; Allen v. State, 201 Ga. 391, 395, 40 S.E.2d 144; Sudlow v. State, 140 Ga.App. 146, 147, 230 S.E.2d 106; Thomas v. State, 234 Ga. 635, 636(1), 217 S.E.2d 152; Hart v. State, 149 Ga.App. 785, 256 S.E.2d 127. Further, the cour......