Clark v. State

George Pose Smith, Justice.

This is the second appeal in this case. Clark was charged with having raped his nine-year-old stepdaughter. At the first trial he was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment.

We reversed that judgment for two errors, one of which was the trial court’s refusal to give a requested instruction submitting to the jury the offense of carnal abuse, which under the testimony was a lesser offense included in the charge of rape. The court had submitted only the offense of rape, which was defined for the jury as the carnal knowledge of a female, forcibly and against her…