Opinion ID: 2334199
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Force or Fear: A Single Means of Committing Rape

Text: In analyzing why K.S.A. 2005 Supp. 21-3502(a)(1)(A) does not cover what happened to J.P., we start by determining whether the phrase force or fear describes a single means of committing rape or alternative means. The issue is important when a jury is instructed using that term to describe one of the elements of the offense. If force or fear is a single means, as we would suggest the Kansas Supreme Court has ruled, then the evidence need only support one or the other to uphold a verdict of guilty. That is, the defendant may have used force alone or fear alone to induce the victim's compliance. If, however, the force or fear language describes alternative means and the prosecution declines to elect one or the other, resulting in a jury instruction on both, the evidence must be sufficient to support each. If a jury has been instructed on alternative means, all of the jurors must be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt the defendant committed the offense. But the jurors need not agree on which of the alternative means has been proven. State v. Wright, 290 Kan. 194, Syl. ¶ 2, 224 P.3d 1159 (2010). A general verdict of conviction is legally proper so long as the record contains sufficient evidence to support each means. Wright, 290 Kan. 194, Syl. ¶ 2, 224 P.3d 1159; State v. Stevens, 285 Kan. 307, 316, 172 P.3d 570 (2007). Should evidence be lacking on one of the means, however, then a guilty verdict fails for insufficient evidence, requiring the court to enter a judgment of acquittal. See K.S.A. 22-3419(1); Hollins, 9 Kan.App.2d at 489-90, 681 P.2d 687 (On its own motion, a court may enter a judgment of acquittal if the evidence is insufficient to sustain a conviction of the crime charged.). Settling whether force or fear is a single means or alternative means directs the balance of our inquiry into the sufficiency of the evidence to support the conviction. The Supreme Court's analysis in Wright treats force or fear as a single means of committing rape. Wright, 290 Kan. at 206-07, 224 P.3d 1159. The rape conviction in that case could not have been affirmed if force or fear presented alternative means. In Wright, the trial court instructed the jury that the defendant could be convicted if the sex act were the product of force or fear or if the victim had been unconscious and, thus, unable to give consent. 290 Kan. at 199, 224 P.3d 1159. The evidence established that a woman fell asleep while receiving a massage and awoke to find the masseuse digitally penetrating her. The woman said she was startled, afraid, and then tense; she, therefore, did not immediately tell the masseuse to stop. The masseuse apparently sensed her client's discomfort and quit. On appeal, the defendant masseuse argued the evidence failed to support each of the alternative means identified in the jury instructions. The court found the victim's testimony about being paralyzed with fear upon awakening to be sufficient to support a verdict based on fear. 290 Kan. at 206-07, 224 P.3d 1159. Nobody disputed the victim's testimony that she had fallen asleep before the assault had begun supported a verdict based on unconsciousness. But the Supreme Court neither mentions nor analyzes the lack of any evidence suggesting use of force to overcome the victim. The State never argued that the defendant used force, only that the victim was fearful once she realized what was happening to her. Similarly, the defendant argued to the Supreme Court that the only evidence to support a conviction by force or fear was the victim's fearfulness in the midst of the offending act. Throughout its opinion in Wright, the Supreme Court describes force or fear in terms consistent with its being a single means. 290 Kan. at 199, 224 P.3d 1159 (The court describes the defendant as arguing the jury should not have been instructed on force or fear because the evidence was insufficient on that alternative means of committing the crime and suggests no error in such a characterization of force or fear as one means. [Emphasis added.]); 290 Kan. at 199, 224 P.3d 1159 (The court notes that the trial judge discussed a verdict form listing the two alternative means of committing rape, thereby giving the jury the option to convict Wright on either, both, or neither[;] but the court never suggests there were actually three means: by force, by fear, and inability to consent due to unconsciousness). The Supreme Court explicitly looked at the sufficiency of the evidence to support force or fear as a single means of committing rape and then to support lack of consent due to unconsciousness as another alternative means. 290 Kan. at 206-07, 224 P.3d 1159. The court noted the victim testified that when she awoke and realized what Wright was doing to her, she was paralyzed with fear. And that was sufficient to find Wright guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of committing rape by force or fear. 290 Kan. at 206, 224 P.3d 1159. The court, then, concluded: [T]he evidence of each means of committing rapeby force or fear or by unconsciousnesswas sufficient to uphold a guilty verdict on the rape charge. 290 Kan. at 207, 224 P.3d 1159. On that basis, the Supreme Court affirmed the rape conviction. Had the Wright court treated force or fear as alternative means to commit rape, it would have had to reverse the conviction because there was no evidence the defendant used force to overcome the victim. In short, only if force or fear represents one means of violating the rape statute does the analysis and result in Wright make sense. We, therefore, accept the rationale and outcome of Wright as authoritative precedent for the proposition that force or fear is a single, unified means of committing rape. A conclusion that force and fear reflect independent and alternative means depends upon branding Wright as either illogical or outcome driven in disregard of the statutory language defining rape. The Kansas Supreme Court's earlier decision in State v. Timley, 255 Kan. 286, 290, 875 P.2d 242 (1994), certainly suggests force or fear may be alternative means of committing rape. But that suggestion ultimately is unstudied dicta. Timley challenged the force or fear language in a rape elements instruction on a multiple acts theory. He argued the prosecutor had to elect either force or fear or, absent an election, the jury should have received a unanimity instruction as well. The court rejected that argument and contrasted multiple acts issues with alternative means issues. 255 Kan. at 289-90, 875 P.2d 242. The court went on to observe that Timley conceded the victims provided testimony supporting both his use of force and his use of fear during the offenses and discounted any alternative means problems. 255 Kan. at 290, 875 P.2d 242. But, of course, that wasn't Timley's argument. The court made no studied determination as to whether force or fear constituted one means of committing rape or alternative means. It merely assumed them to be alternative means for purposes of tidying up what amounted to a loose end of no material consequence to the asserted issue. By any measure, that's dicta.