Court Opinion

ID: 9564284
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:57:13.259949+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:19.783489
License: Public Domain

CROCKETT, Chief Justice
(dissenting):
The prosecution correctly asserts, as we have many times acknowledged, that the jury and the trial court are entitled to a wide latitude of discretion in the finding of facts and the determination of guilt. However, this does not mean that they are infallible, nor that they have the uncontrolled privilege of making findings wherever passion or prejudice or whim or caprice may lead them. This Court has some responsibility of review even on questions of fact; and when it appears that upon surveying the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, there is no reasonable basis therein which would justify reasonable minds in finding the defendant guilty, it is our duty to reverse such a conviction.1
I appreciate that the victim is not required to endure nor to risk any severe physical harm. But the essence of the offense of rape is force or fear which overcomes the resistance of the victim. This includes both the will to resist and actual resistance, as contrasted to consent or cooperation. As our statute, Sec. 76-5-406 states: the force must be that which “overcomes such earnest resistance as might reasonably be expected under the circumstances;” or a threat of violence that “would prevent resistance by a person of ordinary resolution.”
It is noteworthy here that there was no weapon such as a knife or a gun, nor any substantial physical violence or injury. When the victim had left the truck and was thus out of the control of the defendant, she had ample opportunity to escape or to elude and avoid further contact. But instead of doing so, she “partially undressed” and voluntarily got back into the truck; and quite the contrary to resistance, she chose to actively cooperate and participate in the actions which are charged as a violent invasion of her person.
An observation which seems pertinent here is that this whole affair of drinking, smoking marijuana and engaging in illicit sex was so repugnant to the sensibilities of decent law-abiding citizens that their judg-*1285merits may have been distorted into thinking “a plague on both their houses.” Indeed as to other crimes, the victim could himself have been charged, either as a principal, or as an accomplice, as one who aids in the commission of a crime, and there would have been no less doubt about her guilt than there is about the guilt of the defendant. But inasmuch as it was the defendant who was charged with rape, they convicted him of that crime. We should keep in mind that the question is not whether other offenses were committed, but whether there was a basis upon which to find that the crime of forcible rape was committed.
Based upon what has been said above, I am impelled to the conclusion that taking the evidence even in the light most favorable to the prosecution, there is no reasonable basis therein whereby reasonable minds acting fairly thereon should believe beyond a reasonable doubt that this was a crime of forcible rape. Therefore, I think the conviction should be reversed.2
MAUGHAN, J., concurs in the dissenting opinion of CROCKETT, C. J.

. As to the crime of rape see State v. Williams, 111 Utah 379, 180 P.2d 551 (1947); State v. Mortensen, 95 Utah 541, 83 P.2d 261 (1938).

. On this same principle this Court in a unanimous decision reversed a conviction of rape in the case of State v. Horne, 12 Utah 2d 162, 364 P.2d 109 (1961).