Johnson v. State

OPINION

Three of the defendants, Eddie Lee Pallor, Robert Lee Johnson, and Louis Douglas Johnson, were convicted of raping a young Memphis prostitute and received thirty year sentences; the fourth, Melvin Lee Taylor, was convicted as an aider and abettor and was sentenced to ten years imprisonment. At trial the thrust of their defense was consent, or alternatively that “even though technically a prostitute can be raped, . . . the act of the rape itself was of no trauma whatever to this type of an unchaste woman.” The jury rejected the defense of consent, as well as the defendants’…