People v. Valencia

THOMPSON, J.

The defendant was charged by an information in two counts with the offense of statutory rape. At the time of the trial the prosecutrix testified that she did not have sexual intercourse with the defendant on the day of June 13, 1926, as alleged in the second count, and for that reason it was dismissed. She did, however, testify that the offense charged in the first count was committed on June 6, 1926. The jury returned a verdict of guilty on this count and the defendant appeals from the judgment pronounced thereon and also from the order denying his motion for a new trial.

While put by appellant in several different forms, his attack upon the judgment amounts to this: (1) That the

corpus delicti

was not proved and the confession of defendant was improperly admitted; (2) that the court erred in

[308]

permitting the prosecutrix to testify concerning the act, because she demonstrated a lack of knowledge sufficient for a basis of discrimination; (3) that counsel’s argument at the time of trial was erroneously curtailed; (4) that the court refused to give a requested instruction; and (5) that the evidence is so incredible, improbable and far from being clear and convincing that it is insufficient to justify the verdict.

Assuming for the moment that the testimony of the prosecutrix was admissible, and that the objections which counsel has to it run to the weight rather than to its admissibility, then the testimony related by her and two doctors furnishes evidence covering every element of the offense and establishes the

corpus delicti

sufficiently for the introduction of the confession of the defendant. She testified to her age of fifteen years and to the act of sexual intercourse. Doctor Beatty examined the witness on November 18, 1926, and found that she had been pregnant seven or eight months. Doctor Polesky testified to the birth of a child to the complaining witness on December 25, 1926. While the defendant argues that the testimony of the doctors should have been stricken, and that instead of proving the act it tended to disprove it by reason of the fact that the normal period of human gestation is nine months. Nevertheless it must be borne in mind that the prosecutrix testified that she had never had intercourse with any other person. And in this connection, it was decided in the case of