People v. Johnson

Defendant was convicted of the crime of rape and sentenced to be imprisoned in the state prison. He has taken this appeal from the judgment entered against him. Conviction was had after several mistrials. In the presentation of this appeal we have not been aided by briefs, although counsel for the appellant did by oral argument point to several matters in support of the claim that error had been committed in the lower court by reason of which defendant had been deprived of his right to a fair trial. The record is quite voluminous. We have, however, made a very close examination of it in order to determine whether the contentions of appellant are of sufficient merit to warrant a reversal.

At the time the alleged offense was committed, the date being the twenty-seventh day of March, 1919, according to the charge contained in the information, the prosecutrix was a child of the age of fifteen years. She was a daughter of a sister of the wife of the defendant. She went to .live in the household of the defendant about the year 1916. This household at that time consisted of the defendant and his wife, and a minor child of the two latter. The family first lived at Sawtelle; later, in the…