Opinion ID: 2513467
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The People v. Cicero Decision

Text: After these amendments, efforts by the appellate courts to interpret section 288(b) produced mixed results. Despite the removal of the phrase against the will of the victim from section 288(b), some courts continued to recognize consent as a defense to an aggravated lewd acts charge because they reasoned consent was inconsistent with the use of force and duress. Much confusion concerning the role of consent stemmed from the divided decision of the Third District Court of Appeal in People v. Cicero (1984) 157 Cal.App.3d 465 [204 Cal.Rptr. 582] ( Cicero ). The Cicero majority's faulty reasoning caused it to interpret section 288(b) as meaning precisely the opposite of what the Legislature intended. Because Cicero 's holding and related dicta have led other courts astray, we discuss the decision in some detail. Cicero was charged with committing lewd acts by force on two girls, ages 11 and 12. ( Cicero, supra, 157 Cal.App.3d at pp. 470-471.) The girls testified that 24-year-old Cicero, a twice-convicted felon, had approached and engaged them in friendly conversation as they played by a waterway. ( Id. at pp. 469-470.) When the girls pretended to push each other in the water, Cicero proposed to throw them both in. ( Id. at p. 470.) He lifted both girls by the waist and began to carry them. As he did so, he closed a hand around each child's crotch. ( Ibid. ) The girls laughed, believing the touching was accidental. After he carried them 15 to 20 feet, Cicero sat but continued to hold each girl by the waist. ( Ibid. ) When one child said she was afraid and had to go home, Cicero said they could leave if one of them kissed him. ( Ibid. ) The trial court found that one of the girls `gave him a little brush kiss on the cheek[;] he requested a real kiss[;] and he attempted to kiss her again.' ( Id. at p. 470, fn. 3.) The girls ran away and reported the incident. ( Id. at p. 471.) After a court trial, Cicero was convicted of two counts of lewd conduct by force. (§ 288(b).) The trial court found no evidence he had used violence or threatened great bodily harm. On appeal, Cicero did not dispute he had committed lewd acts but claimed no force was used as a matter of law. ( Cicero, supra, 157 Cal.App.3d at p. 473, italics added.) (4) The Court of Appeal therefore had to determine what level of force is necessary to support an aggravated lewd act conviction. To answer that question, the majority reasoned that the harsher penal consequences of a conviction under section 288(b), as compared to section 288(a), require that the force used for a subdivision (b) conviction be substantially different from or substantially greater than that necessary to accomplish the lewd act itself. ( Cicero, supra, 157 Cal.App.3d at p. 474.) This formulation was, and remains, an appropriate definition of the force required for an aggravated lewd conduct conviction under section 288(b), now section 288(b)(1). (See People v. Griffin (2004) 33 Cal.4th 1015, 1027 [16 Cal.Rptr.3d 891, 94 P.3d 1089].) However, after concluding this definition of force was satisfied by Cicero's conduct, the majority went on to consider whether section 288(b) also required that the force cause physical injury to the victim. ( Cicero, at p. 474.) In casting about to answer this question, the majority turned to the law of rape for guidance. ( Cicero, supra, 157 Cal.App.3d at p. 475.) At this point, the decision's skein of logic began to unravel. As even the Cicero decision recognized, rape is an act of intercourse accomplished against a person's will. (§ 261, subd. (a)(2); see Cicero, at p. 475.) Yet, just two years earlier, the Legislature had specifically deleted from section 288(b) a requirement that the lewd act be committed against the will of the victim. By drawing an analogy to rape at the beginning of its journey, the Cicero majority chose a guide destined to lead it astray. [7] In discussing the law of rape, the majority observed that the fundamental wrong punished as rape is not the infliction of physical injury but the violation of a woman's will and sexuality from intercourse undertaken without her consent. ( Cicero, supra, 157 Cal.App.3d at p. 475.) The force used by a rapist need not cause physical harm, but it is relevant to show that the intercourse was against the victim's will. ( Ibid. ) The majority concluded the same definition of force should apply in aggravated lewd conduct cases: It seems both logical and fair to us that if the will and sexuality of an adult woman are protected by the Penal Code, then the will and sexuality of children deserve no lesser protection. Accordingly, both logic and fairness compel the conclusion that `force' in subdivision (b) must reasonably be given the same established meaning it has achieved in the law of rape: `force' should be defined as a method of obtaining a child's participation in a lewd act in violation of a child's will and not exclusively as a means of causing physical harm to the child. ( Cicero, at pp. 475-476.) (5) Cicero based its conclusion that consent is a defense to section 288(b) on a flawed analogy between lewd acts on a child and rape. We have cautioned that significant differences between these crimes argue strongly against importing definitions from one context to the other. ( People v. Griffin, supra, 33 Cal.4th at pp. 1026-1027.) Unlike rape, the wrong punished by the lewd acts statute is not the violation of a child's sexual autonomy, but of its sexual innocence. [S]ection 288 was enacted to provide children with `special protection' from sexual exploitation. ( People v. Olsen (1984) 36 Cal.3d 638, 647-648 [205 Cal.Rptr. 492, 685 P.2d 52].) The statute recognizes that children are `uniquely susceptible' to such abuse as a result of their dependence upon adults, smaller size, and relative naiveté. [Citation.] The statute also assumes that young victims suffer profound harm whenever they are perceived and used as objects of sexual desire. ( People v. Martinez (1995) 11 Cal.4th 434, 443-444 [45 Cal.Rptr.2d 905, 903 P.2d 1037].) (6) Next, having been asked only to define force, the Cicero majority paused to consider the meaning of duress, a question that was not presented. It remarked that the terms duress, menace, and threat are ordinarily used to demonstrate that someone has used some form of psychological coercion to get someone else to do something they don't want to do, i.e., something against their will. ( Cicero, supra, 157 Cal.App.3d at p. 477.) The observation is accurate when lack of consent must be proven. The majority erred, however, in assuming that it is impossible to consider the concepts of duress, menace, or threat apart from their ultimate effect on a victim. A perpetrator may use duress, menace, or threats against a victim even if this conduct does not ultimately influence the victim's state of mind. In the context of lewd acts with a child under 14, it is the defendant's menacing behavior that aggravates the crime and brings it under section 288(b). After its diversion into duress, the Cicero majority arrived at the rather startling inference that the Legislature did not intend to eliminate lack of consent from most section 288(b) cases. ( Cicero, supra, 157 Cal.App.3d at pp. 478, 482.) It held that consent was not a defense if the child suffered demonstrable physical harm from a forcible lewd act. ( Id. at p. 479.) However, if the child suffered no physical harm, the majority held that the prosecution was required to prove (1) that the defendant used physical force substantially different from or substantially in excess of that required for the lewd act and (2) that the lewd act was accomplished against the will of the victim. ( Cicero, at p. 484.) [8] Quite obviously, this interpretation of section 288(b) directly contradicted the 1981 legislative amendments. As Justice Regan pointed out in dissent, the majority wr[ote] back into the subdivision precisely what the Legislature wrote out of the subdivision, so that the majority may in turn rest the conviction of the question of `knowing consent.' ( Cicero, supra, 157 Cal.App.3d at p. 487 (dis. opn. of Regan, Acting P. J.).) Aware of the discrepancy between its conclusion and the perplexing statutory amendment ( Cicero, supra, 157 Cal.App.3d at p. 476) to section 288(b), the majority first sought an explanation for the amendment in legislative history. After cursorily reviewing Senate Bill No. 586's chronology, however, the majority dismissed the legislative history as unenlightening. ( Cicero, at pp. 476-477.) It observed that the phrase against the will of the victim was not removed from section 288(b) until the final conference and concluded the reason for this change was not apparent. ( Cicero, at p. 477.) As we have discussed, however, a comprehensive review of the legislative history clearly shows that the Legislature deleted the phrase in order to eliminate consent as a defense to the aggravated lewd act crime. In dissent, Justice Regan criticized the majority's analysis. Regarding the 1981 amendments to section 288(b), he explained: [T]he Legislature simply recognized the lewd act in subdivision (a) need not be against the [victim's] will, and thus, it need not be in the use of force under subdivision (b). In fact, under the plain language of the statute, the act in subdivision (b) can be committed with knowing consent and still be a violation of the subdivision, if force is used. Force is limited to something the perpetrator applies; it is independent of the actions or thoughts of the under-14-year-old victim. ( Cicero, supra, 157 Cal.App.3d at pp. 487-488 (dis. opn. of Regan, Acting P. J.).) Justice Regan concluded that knowing consent by a child under 14 is not an affirmative defense to subdivision (a), and cannot be one to subdivision (b). ( Cicero, at p. 488 (dis. opn. of Regan, Acting P. J.).)