Opinion ID: 1303713
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 18

Heading: Faulty Attempted Rape Instructions

Text: Defendant next challenges certain instructions given at his second trial with respect to the offense of attempted rape. The trial court properly instructed the jury that the crime is not committed if, despite his intent to rape, defendant freely and voluntarily abandoned his original intent before committing any act toward the ultimate commission of the rape. (See CALJIC No. 6.02.) The court also instructed the jury that If a person is prevented from committing an act ... he cannot avoid the responsibility by not proceeding further with his intent to commit the crime either by reason of voluntarily abandoning [its] purposes or because he was prevented from or interfered with in completing a crime. This latter instruction appears to be a modified, and possibly garbled, version of CALJIC No. 6.01, which explains that once an attempted rape has occurred, the actor cannot avoid responsibility by not proceeding further with the crime, either by reason of voluntarily abandoning it or being prevented from completing it. Defendant argues that the modified instruction substantially diluted the abandoned intent instruction and improperly suggested to the jury that he could be found guilty of rape or attempted rape, even though he abandoned his intent to commit rape, merely because he was somehow prevented from completing the act. First, as we previously observed, defendant was properly convicted of attempted rape in his first trial, and the issue of his guilt of that offense should not have been retried by the jury in the second trial. Defendant does not suggest that the attempted rape instructions at his first trial were flawed in any way. Moreover, the jury was properly instructed at the second trial on the remaining attempted rape issues, including the necessity of finding a union of act and intent, as well as a specific intent to commit rape. The challenged instruction was followed immediately by the correct instruction that If the person intends to commit a rape, but before he commits any act towards the ultimate commission of the rape, he freely and voluntarily abandons his original intent and makes no effort to accomplish it, the crime of attempt has not been committed. Under the circumstances, any error in instructing on abandonment of criminal intent was clearly harmless.