THE STATE v. COLLINS
S98G0496
Supreme Court of Georgia
September 21, 1998; Reconsideration Denied October 26, 1998
270 Ga. 42 | 508 S.E.2d 390
FLETCHER, Presiding Justice.
personal attorney-client privilege.9
Aсcordingly, we reverse the Court of Appeals’ holding that the trial court properly precluded Zielinski from using the transcript of the July 30 meeting to impeach Castleberry.
Judgment reversed. All the Justices concur.
DECIDED SEPTEMBER 21, 1998 —
RECONSIDERATION DENIED OCTOBER 26, 1998.
Vincent R. Lauria, Bondurant, Mixson & Elmore, M. Jerome Elmore, Frank M. Lowrey IV, for appellant.
Arrington & Hollowell, Gary W. Diamond, Joni C. Hamilton, Mark W. Wortham, for appellees.
FLETCHER, Presiding Justice.
A jury convicted William Perry Collins of rape, statutory rape, and incest involving a 12-year-old girl. The court of appeals affirmed the convictions of statutory rape and incest, but reversed the rape conviction on the grounds that the state failed to show that the defendant used force.1 We grantеd the writ of certiorari to consider whether the element of force may be presumed as a matter of law to obtain a rape conviction when the victim is a minor. Adhering to our decision in Drake v. State,2 we hold that the state must prove the element of force to obtain a conviction for forcible rape of a victim under the age of consent. Therefore, we affirm.
In enacting a new criminal code in 1968, this state adopted the common-law definition of rape.3
Under the influence of the Model Penal Code, this court has judicially interpreted the remaining terms, “forcibly” and “against her will,” as two separate elements in rape cases.4 The term “against her will” means without consent; the term “forcibly” means acts of physical force, threats of death or physical bodily harm, or mental coercion, such as intimidation.5 The fact that a victim is under the age of consent may supply the “against her will” element in a forcible rape case since it shows that thе victim is incapable of giving legal consent. The same fact cannot supply the element of force as a matter of law in rape cases based on our decision in Drake.
In that case, we reasoned that presuming force from the victim‘s age in all forcible rape cases would, as a practical matter, eliminate the crime of statutory rape. Instead, we concluded that the element of force was supplied by the nine-year-old child‘s fear that Drake would beat her or her mother if she resisted.6
Since our decision in Drake, we have at least three times stated that sexual acts directed against a child are forcible and against the will as a matter of law. In Cooper v. State,7 we held that the state did not have to show that a defendant used physical force against a five-year-old child or the child resisted to prove force in an aggravated sodomy case. In Richardson v. State,8 a case involving incest and sodomy, we concluded that a stepfather‘s five-year pattern of sexual exploitation against his teenage stepdaughter was forcible, as a matter of law, based on her age and his position of authority in the family. Finally, in Brown v. State,9 we rejected the state‘s contention that child molestation was not a forcible felony. Quoting our decision in Cooper, we stated: “Because children do not have the capacity to give consent to or resist a sexual act directed at them, such acts ‘are, in law, forcible and against the will’ of a child.”10
We granted certiorari in this case to determine whether, as a dissenting judge on the court of appeals asserts, our opinion in Drake is not “good law” in forcible rape cases because our decisions in Cooper, Brown, and Richardson have negated its holding.11 Although there are legitimate arguments for reconsidering our decision in Drake, we choose to reaffirm its holding that the state must prove the element of force as a factual matter in forcible rape cases rather than presuming force as a matter of law based on the victim‘s age.
First, we consider the rationale given in Drake still to be persua-sive. Statutory rape is a strict liability crime based solely on the act of sexual intercourse with an underage victim.12 As a practical matter, few defendants would be charged with that crime if both force and consent were presumed as a matter of law in forcible rape cases involving victims under the age of consent. Unlike forcible rape, the crimes involved in Cooper, Brown, and Richardson have no strict liability counterpart similar to statutory rape. Therefore, the rationale used in Drake would not apply in those cases.
Second, the crime of rape is unlike any other crime. As the drafters of the Model Penal Code explained:
Rape “is the only form of violent criminal assault in which the physical act accomplished by the offender . . . is an act which may, under other circumstances, be desirable to the victim.” This unique feature [requires distinguishing] between true aggression and desired intimacy. The difficulty
of drawing this line is compounded by the fact that there often will be no witness to the event other than the participants and that their perceptions may change over time.13
Due to these peсuliarities, rape cases have too often focused on the actions of the victim rather than the misconduct of the suspect. Unlike other sexual offenses, rape historically has required corroboration,14 victims have had to show that they physically resisted with all their strength to prove lack of consent,15 and defendants have presented evidence on the prior sexual conduct of the victims.16 Fortunately these evidentiary problems have been addressed, thus allowing rape prosecutions to properly concentrate on the acts of sexual violence by thе defendant against the victim. Nevertheless, the uniqueness of the crime justifies treating it differently from related sexual offenses.
Third, the quantum of evidence to prove force against a child is minimal, despite the dissent‘s argument. Physical force is not required. “Intimidation may substitute for force.”17 The element of force is shown “if the defendant‘s words or acts were sufficient to instill in the victim a reasonable apprehension of bodily harm, violence, or other dangerous consequences to herself or others.”18 Thus, the state proved force in Drake through the nine-year-old victim‘s testimony that she was afraid that her father would beat her or her mother if she rеfused his orders.19 In other cases, force has been shown by testimony that the defendant refused to take the victim home or release her,20 the defendant threatened to spank the victim if she told,21 and the defendant threatened to put the victim and her mother on the streets.22
Finally, establishing a single rule of law in all forcible rape cases involving underage victims is problematic. If we were to presume that force is shown every time the victim is below the legal age of consent, the same rule would apply to the child entering kindergarten and the sexually active high school student. This single treatment not only ignores the wide variety of factual situations in rape сases, but also runs counter to the trend in the criminal law to create “meaningful grading distinctions among the different forms of the offense.”23
Yet, this case points out a troubling conflict between the way state law deals with forcible rape and other sexual offenses. At common law, rape included consensual relations with a girl under ten years of age.24
The Model Penal Code presents a solution to this inconsistency when the victim is a young child, which we urge the General Assembly to consider. In its definition of rape, the code provides that a man is guilty of rape if “the female is less than 10 years old.”26 Enacting this additional definition of forcible rape in Georgia would reestablish our common-law rule and the commоn-sense principle that sexual intercourse with a child under ten years of age is a forcible act constituting rape as a matter of law.
Judgment affirmed. All the Justices concur, except Hunstein, J., who dissents.
HINES, Justice, concurring.
I write separately to explain my decision to join in the majority opinion. While I agree with the dissent that Drake v. State, 239 Ga. 232 (236 SE2d 748) (1977), represents a substantial departure from prior precedent, legislative changes to
The legislature has provided gradients of punishment for statutory rape according to the age of the perpetrаtor. When the person so convicted is twenty-one years of age or older, the person is to be punished by imprisonment for not less than ten nor more than twenty years. When the person is twenty years old or less the sentence may be as little as one year. Further, if the statutory rape victim is fourteen or fifteen years of age and the person convicted is no more than three years older than the victim, then the person will be guilty of only a misdemeanor.
Moreover, unlike forcible rape, statutory rape is gender neutral. Therefore, presuming forсe as a matter of law based on the victim‘s age could result in disparate treatment dependent on the gender of the perpetrator. A young male statutory rapist of a 14 or 15-year-old victim could be convicted and alternatively sentenced for forcible rape while a young female statutory rapist of a similarly-aged victim could be punished only for a misdemeanor.
To require a factual showing of force in the circumstances of the case at bar is not inconsistent with our determinations in Cooper v. State, 256 Ga. 631 (352 SE2d 382) (1987), Richardson v. State, 256 Ga. 746 (353 SE2d 342) (1987), and Brown v. State, 268 Ga. 154 (486 SE2d 178) (1997). These cases did not involve simultaneous prosecutions for statutory rape and forcible rape, and in Brown, which I authored, child molestation was deemed to be a forcible felony for the purpose of allowing the defendant to present a justification defense under
HUNSTEIN, Justice, dissenting.
The majority has chosen to follow the holding in Drake v. State, 239 Ga. 232 (236 SE2d 748) (1977). I do not believe Drake constitutes sound law for the reasons set forth herein and would reject it to hold instead that as a matter of law, sexual intercourse with a female under the age of 16 is both forcible and against the victim‘s will. Accordingly,
The first reason why I would reject Drake is because it represents an unjustifiable and unsupported break with Georgia case law precedent. To convict a male of rape, the State must prove three essential elements: that the defendant had (1) carnal knowledge of a female (2) forcibly and (3) against her will.
evoked, applied and referenced by appellate opinions rendered in every decade prior to Drake‘s contrary holding.28 Citing only a general treatise on criminal law and one 1977 Georgia opinion which Drake erroneously considered to have “heralded” its position, id. at 235 (1),29 Drake rejects a principle established over 120 years in Georgia law and held that while the presumption of lack of consent would be retained, force could no longer be presumed, but must be proven in every rape case regardless of the age of the victim. It thus appears that Drake has no support in prior case law for rejecting the presumption of force.30
necessary to break with well-established law that a defendant commits rape when he has sexual intercourse with a victim who is physically or mentally incapable of giving consent, with the element of force being supplied by the effort required to penetrate the victim‘s sex organ. See, e.g., Whitaker v. State, 199 Ga. 344 (1) (34 SE2d 499) (1945); Gore v. State, 119 Ga. 418 (46 SE 671) (1904). Bеcause application of this presumption of “constructive force” in regard to a victim incapable of giving consent would likewise obliterate the judicial distinction Drake was drawing between rape and statutory rape (since underage victims are presumed by law to be incapable of giving consent), Drake was forced to hold that this principle applies solely to helpless adult victims, and not children. Id. at 234 (“[i]t is true that sometimes mere lack of consent imputes force, but this is true only where children are not involved“). Drake affords more protection to helpless adults than to children.
This gives rise to the next reasons why I would reject Drake. The break Drake created with established precedent renders its holding unsound because it thwarts the Legislature‘s acknowledged goal of protecting the children of this State and because it creates a judicial distinction between rape and statutory rape that is not consistent with the legislative intent behind the enactment of the statutory rape statute. I turn first to Drake‘s failure to protect children, a problem that is so critical that it troubles the majority itself. The problem is simply stated: Drake requires the State to prove that the defendant used force even when the victim is under ten years of age (implicitly rejecting case law to the contrary, see footnote 30, supra) and expressly refuses to include infants, toddlers and young children among those helpless victims against whom the use of force to accomplish sexual intercourse is presumed. Since Drake also limits the principle of “constructive force,” i.e., the force necessary to accomplish penetration, only to those helpless victims who are adults, id. at 234-235, when the helpless victim is a child Drake requires the State to adduce evidence to show that the defendant used some type of force other than the penetration into the child‘s sex organ in order to prove this essential element. In situations where the victim is a child too young to comprehend or articulate the events which led to the rape, the State faces an evidentiary standard that can be insurmountable in order to satisfy Drake‘s requirement that force be proved by evidence other than the force used for the penetration itself. Drake‘s requirement also confounds the State in those cases where the young victim has been rendered psychologically incapable of dissenting to intercourse as a result of her prior sexual abuse by a third party. In practical terms, it will be extremely difficult for the State to obtain rape convictions for males who assault very young or very abused children. Rather than construing the law in a manner
that would give effect to the intent of the Legislature “to increase the protection afforded by law to the children of this State,” Todd, supra, 25 Ga. App. at 411 (3), Drake construes the law to decrease that protection. The holding in Drake is thus contrary to the purpose of the Legislature.
Next, Drake is contrary to the legislative intent behind the enactment of the statutory rape statute. Drake justifies its holding on
all” since “[s]tatutory rape is merely an act of sexual intercourse with a forbidden partner — a female under [16], not the offender‘s spouse,” id. at 233, it fails to recognize the significance of that statement.
There is another related but equally unpersuasive argument made in support of Drake: the idea is that becаuse statutory rape, unlike rape, still requires evidence of corroboration, Drake‘s holding that the State must adduce evidence of force has the beneficial effect of discouraging the State from indicting a defendant on the “easier-to-prove” rape charge. Quite aside from the insulting assumption on which this argument is based, the actual and detrimental effect of Drake is that the State will have no choice but to indict a child rapist for statutory rape rather than forcible rape in those instances when proof of force can only be provided by testimony by the victim and the rapist‘s viсtim is an infant or an inarticulate toddler or in situations where force cannot be established because the child victim had been so psychologically damaged by prior abuse that she passively submitted to the sex act. This condemnation of Drake is not based on some exercise in hypothetical reasoning but rather on the actual status of criminal law in Georgia today: only the holding in Drake can explain the numerous “statutory” rape convictions received by defendants who had sexual intercourse with children under the age of ten. See, e.g., Peinado v. State, 223 Ga. App. 271 (477 SE2d 408) (1996) (victims were four and five years old); Walker v. State, 214 Ga. App. 777 (449 SE2d 322) (1994) (victim was six); Gordon v. State, 210 Ga. App. 224 (435 SE2d 742) (1993) (victim was seven); Dupree v. State, 206 Ga. App. 4 (424 SE2d 316) (1992) (victim was eight); Andrews v. State, 200 Ga. App. 47 (406 SE2d 801) (1991) (victim was five); Neese v. State, 183 Ga. App. 773 (360 SE2d 1) (1987) (victim was four).
nale, a conclusion most obvious in Cooper, a case involving the commission of aggravated sodomy on a five-year-old girl. Like rape, aggravated sodomy requires proof that the sex act was forcible and against the victim‘s will.
Contrary to the majority‘s statement, Cooper cannot be distinguished on the basis that it has “no strict liability counterpart.”
The error committed by the Court in Drake can be explained very simply: Drake‘s reasoning was so focused on resolving a clever argument raised by the defendant that the Court failed to question the validity of the premise behind that argument. Without looking to the case law or the legislative intent, Drake accepted the presumption thаt the “against her will” element is “automatically shown by [the victim‘s] age,” id. at 233, yet without due consideration deviated from established law by rejecting the force element this irrebuttable presumption supplies due to the closely intertwined nature of these
two elements.32 If age alone can irrebuttably establish that sexual intercourse is “against the will” of every underage victim, a class of victim which now includes teenagers up to the age of 16, how can that presumption not also
Drake does not constitute sound law because of its dire evidentiary problems, its unsupported rejection of established Georgia precedent, its fallacious reasoning, its construction of statutory law contrary to the Legislature‘s intent, and its abandonment in subsequent opinions of this Court. Most importantly, Drake does not constitute sound law because it hurts children rather than protects them. In short, there is no valid reason for following Drake and every reason to reject it. Accordingly, I cannot join the majority‘s оpinion which adheres to and perpetuates the errors in Drake. Because I would hold that sexual acts directed to a child under the age of 16 are, in law, forcible and against the victim‘s will, Cooper, supra at 631 (2), and because the evidence adduced by the State established that Collins’ stepdaughter was 12 years old at the time he engaged in sexual intercourse with her, I would reverse the Court of Appeals and affirm the judgment entered on Collins’ rape conviction.
DECIDED OCTOBER 26, 1998.
J. Thomas Morgan, District Attorney, Lee A. Mangone, Robert M. Coker, Assistant District Attorneys, for appellant.
Kendal D. Silas, for appellee.
