Edmondson v. State

PER Curiam. The appellant was convicted of “statutory rape” after a trial before two judges, sitting without a jury, in the Criminal Court of Baltimore. His motion for a new trial was denied and he was sentenced to twelve years’ imprisonment. The specific offense was carnal knowledge of an imbecile woman (Code (1957), Art. 27, § 462), the girl having been chronologically eighteen years of age, but of a mental age of about four years.

On this appeal the appellant raises two questions: first, the sufficiency of the evidence to prove penetration; and second, the admissibility of testimony as to words spoken and sounds and gestures made by the victim shortly after the occurrence upon which the prosecution was based. The State attempted unsuccessfully to qualify the victim as a witness. Without her direct testimony, the State’s difficulty of proof of penetration was, of course, greater than in most rape cases. Penetration is an essential element of the crime of rape at common law.

Craig v. State, 214 Md. 546 , 136 A. 2d 243 . We shall assume here, as we did in Robert v. State, 220 Md. 159 , 151 A. 2d 737 , and in Smith v. State, 224 Md. 509 , ⁶⁸ 168 A. 2d 356 , that it is also an essential element in statutory rape. Here we think that the evidence of laceration and bleeding in the vaginal region, particularly the testimony of a police physician who examined the girl a few hours after the occurrence with regard thereto, afforded sufficient proof of penetration. He gave it as his opinion that the laceration had been produced by a recent penetration of the vagina, and we think there is no question in this case in the circumstances under which the examination was made as to what he meant and what the court understood him to mean when he spoke of penetration.

Cf. Robert v. State, supra, where the term used was “sexual intercourse.” The record indicates that the imbecile girl was able to speak only very simply