Opinion ID: 175117
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Penetration with a Foreign Object under California Penal Code section 289(a)(1)

Text: At the time of Espinoza's conviction, section 289(a)(1) provided: Every person who causes the penetration, however slight, of the genital or anal openings of any person or causes another person to so penetrate the defendant's or another person's genital or anal openings for the purpose of sexual arousal, gratification, or abuse by any foreign object, substance, instrument, or device, or by any unknown object when the act is accomplished against the victim's will by means of force, violence, duress, menace, or fear of immediate and unlawful bodily injury on the victim or another person shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for three, six, or eight years. Cal.Penal Code § 289(a)(1) (1999). We address in turn whether this offense categorically qualifies as a crime of violence under the element prong or the enumerated offense prong of the § 2L1.2 definition.
We have made clear that the force required under the element prong of the § 2L1.2 crime of violence definition must actually be violent in nature. Grajeda, 581 F.3d at 1191 (quoting Lopez-Montanez, 421 F.3d at 929). Thus, to constitute a categorical crime of violence under the element prong, section 289(a)(1) must only punish conduct that involves the use, attempted use, or threatened use of violent physical force against another. It does not. Rather, section 289(a)(1) applies when a defendant accomplishes a penetration proscribed by the statute by any of several enumerated means, including by means of... duress. [5] Cal.Penal Code § 289(a)(1). Duress does not necessarily involve the use, attempted use, or threatened use of violent physical force. As California courts have explained, duress under section 289(a) involves psychological coercion and can arise from a direct or implied threat of force, violence, danger, hardship or retribution sufficient to coerce a reasonable person of ordinary susceptibilities to first, perform an act which otherwise would not have been performed, or, second, acquiesced [sic] in an act to which one otherwise would not have submitted. People v. Senior, 3 Cal.App.4th 765, 5 Cal. Rptr.2d 14, 20 (1992) (internal quotation marks omitted). Although threatening force, violence, or danger might constitute a threatened use of violent physical force, threatening hardship or retribution does not necessarily involve any threat, use, or attempted use of violent physical force. Indeed, the state has repeatedly applied section 289(a)(1) to defendants who penetrated their victims by means of duress in ways that involved no use or threatened use of violent physical force. In People v. Minsky, for example, a defendant was convicted under section 289(a) for posing as a lawyer and tricking women into believing that a loved one had just been arrested and was facing mandatory jail time for a hit-and-run, and then posing as the hit-and-run victim or witness and offering to drop the charges or to refuse to testify if the woman submitted to sex acts. People v. Minsky, 129 Cal.Rptr.2d 583, 584-85 (Cal.Ct.App.2003), review granted and then dismissed, 23 Cal.Rptr.3d 694, 105 P.3d 115 (2005). [6] An intermediate California appellate court affirmed this conviction, concluding that the defendant accomplished the crime by means of duress by pos[ing] a threat of ... retribution, i.e. payback or revenge. Id. at 586-87. Similarly, in People v. Cardenas, a defendant was convicted under section 289(a) for inducing his victims to consent to sex acts by pretending to be a faith healer who could cure them. 21 Cal.App.4th 927, 26 Cal.Rptr.2d 567, 568 (1994). Again, the intermediate court affirmed the conviction, explaining that the defendant had accomplished the penetrations by means of duress, and that physical force may, but need not[,] be present to have duress. Id. at 573-74. These cases conclusively establish that section 289(a)(1) sometimes punishes conduct that does not involve the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another. Section 289(a)(1) therefore does not categorically qualify as a crime of violence under the element prong of § 2L1.2's definition.
For similar reasons, we also conclude that section 289(a)(1) does not categorically qualify under the enumerated offense prong as a forcible sex offense as our precedents have defined that term. We have held that a forcible sex offense must have an element of the use of some force outside of the act of unwanted penetration. United States v. Bolanos-Hernandez, 492 F.3d 1140, 1144 (9th Cir.2007). Although the offense need not involve the heightened level of force needed to qualify a crime under § 2L1.2's element prong, id. at 1145, the force involved must be physical, as opposed to psychological, see Lopez-Montanez, 421 F.3d at 929-30 (concluding that sexually touching a victim by unlawfully restrain[ing] him or her using only psychological force would not constitute a forcible sex offense). [7] Section 289(a)(1) punishes conduct that does not involve any physical force outside of the act of unwanted penetration. In People v. Hernandez, an intermediate California court of appeal upheld a section 289(a)(1) conviction where [n]othing in the record indicate[d] that defendant applied any force greater than that necessary to commit the sexual penetration offense. No. E029253, 2002 WL 1734011,  (Cal. Ct.App. July 26, 2002). [8] The defendants in Minsky and Cardenas, described above, likewise were convicted under section 289(a) even though they did not use any physical force outside the act of unwanted penetration. See Minsky, 129 Cal.Rptr.2d at 584-85, 589; Cardenas, 26 Cal.Rptr.2d at 570, 573-74. Because section 289(a)(1) applies to conduct that does not involve any such extra physical force, it does not categorically constitute a forcible sex offense and accordingly does not categorically constitute a crime of violence under the enumerated offense prong of § 2L1.2's definition.