Watson v. State
| Decision Date | 30 November 1946 |
| Citation | 197 S.W.2d 802,184 Tenn. 177 |
| Parties | WATSON v. STATE. |
| Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
Error to Criminal Court, Sevier County; Geo. R. Shepherd, Judge.
Ephriam Watson, alias Eaf Watson, Ray Floyd, and William C. Shultz were convicted for rape, and they bring error.
Affirmed.
O. M. Connatser, George G. Allen, and Thad D Smith, all of Sevierville, for plaintiffs in error.
Nat Tipton, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
In the Criminal Court of Sevier County, defendants Watson, Floyd and Shultz, were jointly indicted for rape on the body of Emma Ogle. They were found guilty and their punishment fixed at 20 years in the State penitentiary. They have appealed and assigned errors.
At about 9:00 o'clock in the evening of November 9, 1945 Emma Ogle, who is 26 years old, and her sister, Frances Ogle 24 years old, were returning from a picture show in Gatlinburg, to their home on the Roaring Fork Road, about one-half a mile from town. An automobile passed them and came to a stop. When they overtook the automobile, three men, passengers in the car, asked them if they would not get in the car and take a life home. The young women refused a ride with thanks. The three passengers in the car were the defendants Shultz, Watson and Floyd. They got out of the car and forced the girls to get in it. Shultz drove the car to the intersecting road where the girls normally alighted to return to their home. They asked that the car be stopped there so that they could go home, but Schultz accelerated the speed of the car and drove on for about one-half mile past the intersection. There Emma Ogle had succeeded in opening a door and getting out on the runningboard. She threatened to jump and the car was finally halted. The two girls got away and ran some distance down the road toward their home. They were overtaken and a scuffle ensued. Frances Ogle succeeded in making her escape. Emma Ogle was overcome and dragged back to the car.
The car was then driven on down the road another mile and there stopped apparently on account of some mechanical difficulty.
At that place Emma Ogle was assaulted and raped by each of the three defendants. The car proceeded for another mile or more, and in about 30 or 40 minutes Emma Ogle was again raped by each of the three defendants.
Floyd and Schultz then drove away in the car leaving Emma Ogle with the defendant Watson, who took her to the home of a friend of his named Whaley, and there procured Whaley to return the prosecutrix, Emma Ogle, to her home. Watson rode in the car.
When Frances Ogle had returned home she had reported to her mother that Emma Ogle was being forcibly held in the car by the three men. When Emma Ogle, some hour and a half later, reached home she immediately reported to her mother full details of the assault and rape. She was barefooted, her clothing disarranged and torn and her body bruised and bleeding, showing beyond peradventure that physical violence had been used upon her. She had one slipper in her hand when she returned home, but had lost the other slipper and her coat, as well as the belt from her dress, during the time that she had been with the defendants. Fragments of the belt, as well as the torn and muddy coat and missing slipper, were later found and introduced, with other evidence that before the attack the garments had not been torn but were in good condition.
The mother immediately notified the law officer, Horner, giving him an account of the crime and a description of the defendants. Horner succeeded in arresting all three of the defendants and bringing them before Emma and Frances Ogle the next day.
The young women positively identified the defendants and in the presence of Horner, Emma Ogle accused them of the crime. Defendants Shultz and Floyd admitted their guilt, but Watson remained silent under the accusation, a circumstance to be considered against him under all the authorities.
The day after the crime Emma Ogle was taken by her mother to a doctor for a medical examination which disclosed that her body was bruised, her feet and legs cut, and her genital organs so inflamed and irritated as to support her account of what had happened. Other evidence of sexual intercourse was lost by douches which she took on the night of the crime at her mother's direction, to avoid venereal disease.
A witness, Shaw, who lived about 350 yards from the point on the highway where the young women had tried to escape, testified that at about the time of the night when, according to the prosecutrix, the escape had been attempted, he heard female screams for help, and thinking there had been an automobile wreck, went to his home to secure a flashlight. On his return, all was quiet and he made no further investigation. This witness tended to support Emma Ogle in proving that she had been forcibly abducted.
The defendants Shultz and Floyd admitted that they had had sexual intercourse with the prosecutrix, but insisted that no force had been used against her and that she had been entirely willing. However, in addition to the other articles which Emma Ogle had lost during the assaults, she had reported that Shultz had torn her wrist watch off while he was assaulting her. The watch, with the strap broken, was found by Horner in a car where Shultz had tried to hide it and Emma Ogle had never been a passenger in that car.
The defendant Watson denied that he had had sexual intercourse with Emma Ogle, but asserted that she had offered herself to him for that purpose. He testified that she had drunk beer with the defendants and was intoxicated when he took her home in Whaley's car. He had loaned her his shoes and coat, and according to his account, offered her no indignity whatever.
On the record thus made, a clear issue of fact was presented to the jury. On the one hand was the account of Emma Ogle charging violent assault and rape. She was supported by the condition of her body and clothing and, in part, by the testimony of her mother, her sister, and the witness Shaw. On the other hand was the bare denial of the defendants, which was, we think, discredited even by the probabilities of human conduct and behavior.
The verdict was supported by a preponderance of the evidence and the fifth assignment which challenges the judgment on the sufficiency of the evidence, is overruled.
There are four other assignments.
The first and third present the same proposition and may be considered together. They assert that since it is physicially impossible that two or more persons, simultaneously, commit rape on the same female, that therefore the joint indictment of three defendants here was duplicitous, and the verdict returned on such indictment, void.
It is not questioned that appropriate motions and exceptions by the defendants had been interposed during the trial, to warrant their making this attack. However, we think the facts here present an exception or modification of the rule for the application of which defendants contend. Here were three men jointly engaged on a criminal enterprise which commenced at about 9:30 in the evening and ended before midnight. All three were together during the entire period. Each of them was either a principal or an accessory at each criminal act. Competent evidence against one was evidence against the others. Whether as principal or accessory, they were equally guilty, Code sec. 10758. Under such facts, a joint indictment of several defendants is unobjectionable:
'* * *, and, as in the case of rape, where it appears that two or more persons acted together, aiding and assisting one another in the perpetration of successive rapes, or that the one committed the act and the other did not, but such other stood by and aided and assisted the one in the commission of such act, they may be jointly charged with the commission of such act.' (Italics ours.) 42 C.J.S., Indictments and Informations, § 159, page 1108. De Salve v. People, 98 Colo. 368, 56 P.2d 28; People v. Falley, 366 Ill. 545, 9 N.E.2d 324; People v. Musial, 349 Ill. 516, 182 N.E. 608; Nolan v. Commonwealth, 290 Ky. 482, 161 S.W.2d 593; State v. Burlison, 315 Mo. 232, 285 S.W. 712.
We have no Tennessee authority exactly in point. The Tennessee cases cited by defendants furnish no authority for solution of the question presented. They are: State v. Roulstone, 35 Tenn. 107; State...
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