Opinion ID: 1119447
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 12

Heading: Effect of peri-mortem sexual penetration on murder-rape conviction.

Text: Because the evidence adduced by the State is insufficient to discount the possibility that Mason was dead when the twig was placed in her rectum, we must now decide whether Nevada's rape statute allows a conviction in instances where the evidence is sufficient to show only peri-mortem sexual penetration, that is that the sexual penetration occurred at or around the time of death. [5] Doyle urges this court to recognize that a live victim is a necessary element of sexual assault. In response, the State argues that it should be irrelevant whether sexual penetration occurred before, at, or soon after death. Other jurisdictions are split on this issue. [6] According to the California Supreme Court: Rape requires a live victim. Rape must be accomplished with a person, not a dead body. It must be accomplished against a person's will. A dead body cannot consent to or protest a rape, nor can it be in fear of immediate and unlawful bodily injury [as required by section 261, subdivision (2) ]. Penal Code section 263 provides, `[t]he essential guilt of rape consists in the outrage to the person and feelings of the victim of the rape. . . .' A dead body has no feelings of outrage. People v. Kelly, 3 Cal.Rptr.2d at 691, 822 P.2d at 399 (quoting People v. Sellers, 203 Cal.App.3d 1042, 250 Cal.Rptr. 345, 350 (1988)) (additional citations omitted). The Kansas Supreme Court reached the same result after reviewing the language of Kansas' rape statute: K.S.A. 21-3502(1) begins, Rape is sexual intercourse with a person. Person implies a living person. The statute goes on to define the circumstances when sexual intercourse is rape (a) when the victim is overcome by force or fear; (b) when the victim is unconscious or physically powerless; (c) when the victim is incapable of giving consent because of mental deficiency or disease. All these circumstances require that the victim be living when the act of intercourse takes place. State v. Perkins, 811 P.2d at 1150-51. The Georgia Supreme Court reached the opposite conclusion under its rape statute: There is nothing in [the applicable code section] which precludes a finding of rape if the victim is not alive at the moment of penetration. What the jury must find is that the defendant had carnal knowledge of the victim forcibly and against her will. .... [A]gainst her will has been interpreted to mean without her consent, and has been satisfied in cases in which the victim was drugged, asleep, unconscious, or in a coma. We see no reason why it should be any less applicable in a case in which the defendant has rendered the victim permanently unconscious by killing her. Lipham v. State, 364 S.E.2d at 842-43 (citations omitted). Tennessee expressly followed Georgia's holding in Lipham, adding the following policy observation: We are likewise unable to embrace the notion that the fortuitous circumstances, for the rapist, that death may have preceded penetration by an instant, negates commission of the crime of aggravated rape.... Reading the live only requirement into the statute encourages rapists to kill their victims, in our opinion. Brobeck, 751 S.W.2d at 832. In a slightly different approach, the Massachusetts Supreme Court has recently held that [i]n the circumstances of one continuous event, it does not matter whether the victim's death preceded or followed the sexual attack. Commonwealth v. Waters, 649 N.E.2d at 726; see also State v. Whitsell, 591 N.E.2d at 278 ([T]he state was required to show that the victim was alive when the series of assaults began which ultimately resulted in the act of sexual penetration charged. It was not required to show that she was still alive at the completion of the sequence of events.). [7] Although Nevada's sexual assault statute provides little guidance in this regard, we conclude that the better reasoned interpretation is that the legislature intended person in the rape statute to mean a living human being. We believe that the indignities inflicted upon a corpse, although contemptible in their own right, are distinguishable from those inflicted upon the living, and we further believe that the legislature intended to recognize this distinction when it enacted Nevada's necrophilia statute with its more flexible sentencing guidelines. Moreover, we do not believe that recognizing a live only requirement for a rape conviction will encourage rapists to kill their victims or, as our dissenting colleague asserts, provides a sentencing windfall to a defendant who violently assaults his victim with the intent of committing sexual assault, but kills his victim before the act of sexual penetration is accomplished. In Parker v. State, 109 Nev. 383, 394, 849 P.2d 1062, 1069 (1993), this court affirmed a sentence of death after concluding that whether sexual penetration occurred post-mortem was irrelevant to the applicability of the murder-rape aggravating factor in that case. This court pointed out that NRS 200.033(4) only requires a showing of an attempted sexual assault, not that the penetration must be completed in the victim's lifetime. Id. This court also concluded that [t]he fact that the sexual intercourse occurred provides ample evidence that the assault against [the victim] was sexual in nature. Id. A defendant who receives a death sentence plus a sentence for attempted rape plus a sentence for sexual penetration of a dead human body has certainly received no sentencing windfall. We also recognize that, under the same reasoning applied by this court in Parker, other states have held that a live only requirement need have no effect on the applicability of the felony-murder rule. See, e.g., People v. Kelly, 3 Cal.Rptr.2d at 691-92, 822 P.2d at 399-400 (Felony murder includes a killing committed in the perpetration of, or attempt to perpetrate, rape.). Although not raised in this appeal, presumably a similar result would be reached under Nevada law. See NRS 200.030(1)(b) (Murder of the first degree is murder which is ... committed in the perpetration or attempted perpetration of sexual assault.). [8] Finally, had Doyle made a request for an instruction or a specific objection to the instruction given, the trial court should have instructed the jury that rape cannot take place after the victim is dead. We cannot say, however, that the instruction given was plain error. The instruction that was given required the jury to find that the sexual penetration occurred against the victim's will and without her consent. We conclude that it was implicit in the instruction given that the victim be alive and that the instruction was therefore not improper. For the reasons stated above, we conclude that Doyle's conviction for sexual assault was not supported by substantial evidence.