Opinion ID: 899531
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Heading: Origins of Mayhem and Section 203

Text: First codified in 1850, the crime of mayhem originated in the English common law. (Stats. 1850, ch. 99, § 46, pp. 233-234; People v. Sekona (1994) 27 Cal.App.4th 443, 453-456 (Sekona) [discussing origins of mayhem]; see People v. Keenan (1991) 227 Cal.App.3d 26, 33 (Keenan) [the word “mayhem” is “older form of the word „maim‟ ”].) The early common law crime of mayhem prohibited a person from dismembering or disabling another person, causing “an injury which substantially reduced the victim‟s formidability in combat.” (Goodman v. Superior Court (1978) 84 Cal.App.3d 621, 623 (Goodman); see LaFave, Substantive Criminal Law (2d ed. 2003) Physical Harm & Apprehension, § 16.5, p. 598 (LaFave).) Though not displacing the common law definition, England‟s Coventry Act, enacted in 1670, later expanded the crime of mayhem to include “mere disfigurement without an attendant reduction in fighting ability,” if the injury was intentionally inflicted. (Goodman, supra, 84 Cal.App.3d at p. 624; see Perkins & Boyce, Criminal Law (3d ed. 1982) Other Offenses Against the Person, § 8, p. 240.) Following two previous statutory enactments in 1850 and 1856, the crime of mayhem was codified as section 203 as part of the original Penal Code enacted in 1872. (Sekona, supra, 27 Cal.App.4th at pp. 454-455.) After a minor amendment in 1874, section 203 currently provides: “Every person who unlawfully and maliciously deprives a human being of a member of his body, or disables, disfigures, or renders it useless, or cuts or disables the tongue, or puts out an eye, or slits the nose, ear, or lip, is guilty of mayhem.” (See Code Amends. 4 1873-1874, ch. 614, § 17, p. 427 [replacing “cuts out” with “cuts”]; see also Stats. 1989, ch. 1360, § 106, p. 5864 [no change after routine code maintenance].) Section 203 generally prohibits six injurious acts against a person, three that specify a particular body part and three that do not: (1) dismembering or depriving a part of someone‟s body; (2) disabling or rendering useless a part of someone‟s body; (3) disfiguring someone; (4) cutting or disabling the tongue; (5) putting out an eye; and (6) slitting the nose, ear or lip. (See CALCRIM No. 801 [delineating six types of injuries].) California remains one of only a few jurisdictions that have retained mayhem as a distinct crime. (See LaFave, supra, § 16.5(b), p. 599 & fn. 6; see, e.g., Cole v. Young (7th Cir. 1987) 817 F.2d 412, 417 [“mayhem has become something of an anachronism in Wisconsin‟s criminal law, largely superseded by more „modern‟ crimes”].) Though section 203 contains “verbal vestiges” of the common law and the Coventry Act of 1670, “ „the modern rationale of the crime may be said to be the preservation of the natural completeness and normal appearance of the human face and body, and not, as originally, the preservation of the sovereign‟s right to the effective military assistance of his subjects.‟ ” (People v. Newble (1981) 120 Cal.App.3d 444, 451; see Keenan, supra, 227 Cal.App.3d at p. 34 [describing cases that “have expanded mayhem to include acts not within the original definition of the crime”].) In other words, section 203 “protects the integrity of the victim‟s person.” (People v. Page (1980) 104 Cal.App.3d 569, 578 (Page); see People v. Green (1976) 59 Cal.App.3d 1, 3; see also Keenan, supra, 227 Cal.App.3d at p. 34 [recognizing cases as “practical and proper applications of an old statute to modern-day reality”].) For example, although “not every visible scarring wound” may establish mayhem under section 203 (Goodman, supra, 84 Cal.App.3d at p. 625), the following disfiguring injuries have given rise to a conviction: cigarette burns to 5 both breasts (Keenan, supra, 227 Cal.App.3d at p. 29); a breast nearly severed by a box cutter (People v. Pitts (1990) 223 Cal.App.3d 1547, 1559 (Pitts)); a threeinch facial laceration from a fingernail file (People v. Newble, supra, 120 Cal.App.3d at p. 448); forcible tattoos on the breast and abdomen (Page, supra, 104 Cal.App.3d at p. 576); and a five-inch facial wound from a knife (Goodman, supra, 84 Cal.App.3d at p. 623). Other injuries constituting mayhem under section 203 include blinding of an eye from a kick (Sekona, supra, 27 Cal.App.4th at p. 457); severe facial trauma requiring metal plates and wires to keep the facial bones together (People v. Hill (1994) 23 Cal.App.4th 1566, 1570 (Hill)); a bittenthrough lower lip (People v. Caldwell (1984) 153 Cal.App.3d 947, 952); a broken ankle that had not completely healed after six months (People v. Thomas (1979) 96 Cal.App.3d 507, 512 (Thomas)); and an eye “put out” by a machete (People v. Green, supra, 59 Cal.App.3d at p. 4).