People v. Abdullah

STEPHENS, J.

Ahmed Abdullah was convicted by the court sitting 'without a jury of two charges of rape upon a minor female person. Thereafter his motion for a new trial was denied and judgment was pronounced. He appeals from the judgment and from the order denying said motion.

■The girl’s father, a widower, worked for appellant and lived with his daughter, a younger son and a woman house

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keeper in a house on appellant's premises, quite close to the latter’s residence. Appellant operated a health farm or conditioning establishment on the outskirts of Los Angeles and lived on the place with his wife. At the trial an array of men and women of known probity and standing testified to their long acquaintance with appellant and to his good reputation. At the time of trial the complaining witness was enceinte. She testified with great diffidence, and a perusal of the transcript reveals the fact that her story was produced largely from leading questions to which answers in the negative or the affirmative were given. Many times her answers were simply, “I don’t remember.” The story briefly was that appellant came to the house in which the girl lived and, standing by the kitchen door, told her that he wanted her to be his sweetheart-—that girls of her age could be married, or something to that effect. The housekeeper said she overheard this conversation, which was about if not quite all of the corroborating testimony in the case. Thereafter the girl went to appellant’s house and the two had intercourse, which was repeated several times through the succeeding months, sometimes at appellant’s home and sometimes at the girl’s home.

While the prosecuting witness was being examined in chief appellant’s counsel made the motion that the district attorney elect as to the specific acts, but the court denied the motion with the expression, “Any time within the three years. The specific date is not essential in this type of case.” Later, however, the prosecutor elected to stand on two specific acts, in the following language: “We will elect as to these offenses, one in June and one in the fall; it is alleged September 25th, the date, and the court stated any time within three 3ears, but if I understand counsel’s position we have to elect as to the specific offense, so those will be the two specific offenses.” The year is not mentioned, but the year 1932 must have been intended, "for the immediately preceding questions referred to “last fall” and “last spring ’ ’, and the date of questioning was April 28,1933. This is made certain later on, when the district attorney specifically explained that counsel had mistaken his dates and that he referred to June, 1932. No doubt counsel was misled, because the information fixed the date as of June 1, 1931.