Court Opinion

ID: 9564929
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:11:35.511525+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:15.812635
License: Public Domain

STEWART, Justice:
(concurring).
I concur with Justice Zimmerman’s opinion in affirming the two sodomy convictions and reversing the rape conviction and also with Chief Justice Hall’s opinion in affirming the two sodomy convictions.
With respect to the rape charge, I submit that this is a case in which the trial court clearly should have given a lesser included offense instruction on the crime of child sexual abuse. Such an instruction was requested at trial and improperly refused by the trial court. Had the instruction been given, the problem that divides the Court today might well have not arisen since the jury could have convicted on a crime that clearly fit the facts set out in Chief Justice Hall’s opinion. In my view, the law clearly required giving the instruction, most especially since it was based on defendant’s theory of the case and the defendant therefore had a right to have it presented to the jury. Beck v. Alabama, 447 U.S. 625, 100 S.Ct. 2382, 65 L.Ed.2d 392 (1980). Due process requires that a lesser included offense instruction be given when the evidence warrants such an instruction. State v. Baker, 671 P.2d 152 (Utah 1983); Hopper v. Evans, 456 U.S. 605, 611, 102 S.Ct. 2049, 2052-2053, 72 L.Ed.2d 367 (1982). Beyond question, the evidence would have supported a conviction for child sexual abuse.