Opinion ID: 1060454
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Sexual battery as a Lesser-included Offense

Text: Bowles asserts that the trial court erred when it denied a request that sexual battery be submitted to the jury as a lesser-included offense on the charges of the aggravated rape of Dobbs and the attempted rape of Hampton. This Court has not previously determined whether sexual battery is a lesser-included offense of aggravated rape or attempted rape under the analysis of Burns . Therefore, we now must compare the elements of these offenses pursuant to the Burns test.
The statutory elements [4] of aggravated rape are: (1) An unlawful sexual penetration, defined in Tenn.Code Ann. § 39-13-501(7) (1997) as an intrusion, however slight, of any part of a person's body or of any object into the genital or anal openings of the victim's, the defendant's, or any other person's body; (2) committed with intent, knowledge, or recklessness; [5] and (3) accompanied by either: (a) force or coercion, while the defendant is armed with a weapon or any article which the victim reasonably believes to be a weapon; (b) bodily injury to the victim; or (c) aiding or abetting by other persons and either (i) force or coercion is used or (ii) the defendant has reason to know that the victim is mentally defective, mentally incapacitated, or physically helpless. See Tenn.Code Ann. § 39-13-502 (1997). By comparison, the elements of sexual battery are as follows: (1) An unlawful sexual contact, defined in Tenn.Code Ann. § 39-13-501(6) as: the intentional touching of the victim's, the defendant's, or any other person's intimate parts, or the intentional touching of the clothing covering the immediate area of the victim's the defendant's, or any other person's intimate parts, if that intentional touching can be reasonably construed as being for the purpose of sexual arousal or gratification; (2) committed intentionally; [6] and (3) accompanied by either: (a) force or coercion; (b) lack of consent by the victim, if the defendant knows or has reason to know at the time of the contact that the victim did not consent; (c) knowledge on the part of the defendant that the victim is mentally defective, mentally incapacitated, or physically helpless; or (d) fraud used to accomplish the sexual contact. See Tenn.Code Ann. § 39-13-505 (1997). Thus, under part (a) of the Burns test, sexual battery is not a lesser-included offense of aggravated rape because the sexual contact element of sexual battery includes a requirement that the sexual contact be for the purpose of sexual arousal or gratification, whereas no sexual arousal or gratification element is present in the aggravated rape statute. See State v. Carico, 968 S.W.2d 280, 286 (Tenn.1998) (recognizing that not all rapes are committed for the purpose of pleasure or excitement); see also State v. Adams, 864 S.W.2d 31, 34-35 (Tenn.1993). Likewise, sexual battery does not constitute a lesser-included offense of aggravated rape under part (c) of the Burns test because the elements of sexual battery do not constitute the facilitation, attempt, or solicitation of aggravated rape. Thus, if sexual battery is to be considered a lesser-included offense of aggravated rape, it would be under part (b) of the Burns test. Under part (b) of the Burns analysis, an offense still may be a lesser-included offense even if it fails to satisfy part (a)'s test of inclusive statutory elements, if the only distinguishing aspects of the offense are elements requiring a lesser kind of culpability and/or a less serious harm. In assessing culpability, we look to whether the statutory scheme treats the greater offense as a more serious offense ... [meriting] a more severe punishment, and we also consider the overall degree of blameworthiness associated with the compared offenses. See State v. Ely & State v. Bowers, 48 S.W.3d 710 (Tenn.2001); Black's Law Dictionary 379 (6th ed.1990). Here, in reviewing the count charging rape, the question is whether the culpability or harm inherent in an intentional sexual touching for the purpose of sexual arousal is less than that of an intentional, knowing, or reckless sexual penetration. Cf. State v. Swindle, 30 S.W.3d 289, 293 (Tenn.2000)(comparing the offenses of aggravated sexual battery and misdemeanor assault under part (b) of the Burns test). We conclude that the statutory scheme treats rape as a more serious, blameworthy offense than sexual battery and that an intentional, knowing, or reckless unlawful sexual penetration which causes bodily injury to the victim, whether done in the pursuit of sexual gratification or not, establishes a more culpable mental state and a more physically intrusive contact (and thereby more serious harm) to the victim than an intentional touching for the purpose of sexual arousal or gratification. Accordingly, under part (b) of the Burns analysis, sexual battery is a lesser-included offense of aggravated rape. Having found that sexual battery is a lesser-included offense of aggravated rape, we normally would proceed next to determine whether the evidence adduced at trial was sufficient to justify an instruction pertaining to that offense. In this case, however, such an analysis is unnecessary because we find that, even assuming that the evidence would support a sexual battery instruction, any error on the part of the trial court was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt for the reasons that follow. Recently, in the consolidated cases of Ely & Bowers, this Court re-examined the standard to be applied when assessing whether a trial court's failure to give lesser-included offense instructions was harmless error. 48 S.W.3d at 726. After thorough review of prior case law, we concluded that the defendant's right to lesser-included offense instructions is mandated not only by statute but also by the defendant's right to trial by jury as protected by Article I, section 6 of the Tennessee Constitution. Id. at 727. Accordingly, because a failure to give lesser-included offense instructions is of constitutional dimensions, it is `presumed' reversible; it will result in reversal unless the State convinces the reviewing court beyond a reasonable doubt that the error did not affect the outcome of the trial.  Id. at 725 (citing State v. Harris, 989 S.W.2d 307, 315 (Tenn.1999)). In so holding, the Ely & Bowers Court looked to State v. Williams [7] as an example of a case in which a failure to give lesser-included offense instructions might be considered harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Id. at 726. In Williams , the jury was given instructions regarding the charged offense of first degree murder and the lesser-included offenses of second degree murder and reckless homicide, and it convicted the defendant of first degree murder. 977 S.W.2d 101, 104 (Tenn.1998). The defendant appealed, contending that the jury should have been given instructions regarding the lesser-included offense of voluntary manslaughter. Id. Though the Williams Court acknowledged voluntary manslaughter as a lesser-included offense of first degree murder, it concluded that the trial court's error in failing to instruct the jury regarding that offense was harmless. Id. at 104-07. The Court explained, [B]y finding the defendant guilty of the highest offense to the exclusion of the immediately lesser offense, second degree murder, the jury necessarily rejected all other lesser offenses, including voluntary manslaughter. Id. at 106; but see Ely & Bowers, 48 S.W.3d at 727 (distinguishing Williams and declining, where the jury ... was given no option to convict of a lesser offense, to hold that a failure to give lesser-included offense instructions was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt). A similar analysis applies in the case under submission. On the aggravated rape charge, the jury was given the option of convicting Bowles not only of the charged offense but also of the lesser-included offenses of rape and aggravated sexual battery. Either of these lesser-included offenses would be considered more serious than sexual battery. By finding Bowles guilty of aggravated rape to the exclusion of either rape or aggravated sexual battery, the jury necessarily weighed the evidence and determined that aggravated rape was the most appropriate charge supported by the evidence. Even if the jury had been given the additional option of convicting Bowles of sexual battery, it seems highly improbable that it would have chosen to do so when it had declined to consider other, more serious lesser-included offenses. Under the circumstances, we find beyond a reasonable doubt that the result would have been the same even if the jury had received a sexual battery instruction; therefore, the trial court's failure to instruct the jury regarding sexual battery was harmless error.
We turn next to the question whether sexual battery should have been instructed as a lesser-included offense of attempted rape. In order to prove attempted rape, the State must show that the defendant acted with intent to rape and that his conduct constituted a substantial step toward the commission of a rape. [8] The elements of rape are as follows: [9] (1) unlawful sexual penetration; (2) committed with intent, knowledge, or recklessness; [10] and (3) accompanied by either: (a) force or coercion; (b) lack of consent; (c) knowledge, or reason to know, on the part of the defendant that the victim is mentally defective, mentally incapacitated or physically helpless; or (d) fraud in the accomplishment of the sexual penetration. See Tenn.Code Ann. § 39-13-503 (1997). Thus, sexual battery cannot be a lesser-included offense of attempted rape under part (a) of the Burns test because sexual battery requires proof that the sexual contact be for the purpose of sexual gratification, an element not required to prove attempted rape, and it also cannot be a lesser-included offense under part (c) of that test because sexual battery does not constitute the facilitation, attempt, or solicitation of attempted rape. Unlike aggravated rape, however, attempted rape does not include the lesser-included offense of sexual battery under part (b) of the Burns test because the harm or risk of harm contemplated by sexual battery is not less serious than that contemplated by attempted rape. This is because an attempted rape does not necessarily involve any bodily contact at all, [11] whereas a sexual battery always will involve an unlawful sexual contact. Cf. State v. Rush, 50 S.W.3d 424 (Tenn.2001) (holding that the harm contemplated by the offense of reckless aggravated assault is not less serious than the harm contemplated by the offense of attempted second degree murder because reckless aggravated assault always involves bodily injury to the victim, whereas attempted murder can be committed without injuring the victim and, indeed, without the victim's even being aware of the attempt). Thus, it was not error for the trial court to refuse to instruct the jury regarding sexual battery as a lesser-included offense to attempted rape. [12]