Smotherman v. State

OPINION

BELCHER, Judge.

The offense is rape of a female under the age of 18 years; the punishment, 15 years.

This appeal is from the retrial of a conviction had in 1961 for statutory rape alleged to have occurred on September 26, I960; and from a sentence of 99 years there was no appeal. This conviction was vacated by an order of a Federal Court (Smotherman v. Beto, D.C., 276 F.Supp. 579) on November 24, 1967, resulting in this conviction upon a retrial from which the appellant gave notice of appeal.

The first ground of error complains of the admission of the testimony of the prose-cutrix that…