Court Opinion

ID: 9617704
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 05:00:03.200484+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:04:14.807248
License: Public Domain

JOHNSON, Justice
(dissenting).
Appellant was correct in his contention that the trial court committed reversible error in refusing to instruct the jury upon the offense of contributing to the delinquency of a minor (A.R.S. § 13-822), and in submitting to them verdicts on guilty and not guilty of statutory rape only.
Rule 295 of the Rules of Criminal Procedure, 17 A.R.S., requires that
“Upon an indictment or information for any offense the jurors may convict the defendant of * * * any offense which is necessarily included in the offense charged.”
The question thus presented is whether the offense of statutory rape necessarily includes the offense of contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
A.R.S. § 13-611 defines statutory rape as “an act of sexual intercourse accomplished with a female, not the wife of the perpetrator * * * where the female is under the age of 18 years. * * * ” The information charged the crime in the words of the statute.
A.R.S. Subsection A of § 13-822 charges that “A person who by any act, causes, encourages or contributes to the * * * delinquency of a child, as defined by § 13-821, or who for any cause is responsible therefor is guilty of a misdemeanor * *.” A.R.S. § 13-821 defines such as “any act which tends to debase or injure the morals, health or welfare of a child.” A.R.S. § 13-823 states that a person is guilty, of violating the article “if it appears from the evidence that * * * by any improper act or conduct on the part of such person the * * * delinquency of a child may have been caused or merely encouraged.”
This court has held that under these provisions it is sufficient that the accused caused, encouraged or contributed to some act which tends to debase or injure the morals, health or welfare of a child. Loveland v. State, 53 Ariz. 131, 86 P.2d 942. We have held that the test of a necessarily included offense is whether proof only of the facts charged and essential to sustain conviction of the higher offense described *268in the information will necessarily sustain a conviction of the lesser one, Dunn v. State, 50 Ariz. 473, 73 P.2d 107; and that an offense is necessarily included where it is impossible to commit the higher offense without committing the lower offense at the same time. State v. Hanks, 58 Ariz. 77, 118 P.2d 71.
Under the law of Arizona it is impossible for a man to commit an act of intercourse upon a female under the age of eighteen years who is not his wife without also causing, encouraging or contributing to an act which tends to debase or injure her health, morals or welfare. The law against statutory rape is for the protection of the health, morals and welfare of the female child, which the state is bound to protect. It is impossible to commit statutory rape without also contributing to the delinquency of the minor female.
The majority opinion states that the test of a necessarily included offense in People v. Greer, 30 Cal.2d 589, 184 P.2d 512, has no application to the instant situation because Greer was a double jeopardy case. A careful reading of the Greer case and its footnotes will show that such a distinction was not intended by the California court.
The California and Arizona statutes concerning former jeopardy are virtually identical. Both concern themselves with second jeopardy for the same offense and with jeopardy “for an offense necessarily included therein.” See Greer case, supra, 184 P.2d at page 516, and A.R.S. § 13-145. The Greer case carefully referred to the position of the American Law Institute that while a necessarily included offense is not the “same offense”, it may prohibit a second prosecution. The California court was merely pointing out that in that state a second prosecution on a necessarily included offense is barred because their statute says so, regardless of whether a necessarily included offense is the “same offense” under the language of the State and Federal Constitutions, Const, art. 2, § 10; U.S. Const. Amend. 5. Thus, “necessarily included offense” would have the same meaning wherever it is used.
This court, in State v. Westbrook, 79 Ariz. 116, 119, 285 P.2d 161, 162, 53 A.L.R. 2d 619, cited the Greer case and applied the test: “Is the first offense one that cannot be committed without necessarily committing the second?” This was a former jeopardy case but, as we have stated, the term “necessarily included offense” has but one meaning and but one test. The test quoted above is the same as that applied in Dunn v. State, supra, and State v. Hanks, supra, both of which are Arizona cases concerning the jury’s right to convict the defendant of “any offense which is necessarily included in the offense charged.” Rules of Criminal Procedure, Rule 295, supra.
*269People v. Chester, 138 Cal.App.2d 829, 292 P.2d 573, citing the Greer case, held that a charge of statutory rape would support a conviction of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, as the latter is a necessarily included offense under a statute virtually identical to that of Arizona’s Rule of Criminal Procedure 295.
In the instant case appellant was entitled to his requested instruction on the necessarily included offense of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Were the jury to have found him not guilty of statutory rape, or of even touching her, it could nevertheless have found him guilty of the lesser crime on the basis of evidence given concerning the immediate circumstances of the time and place charged in the information. The information charged appellant with committing the offense “on or about the 26th day of July, 1957”.; upon trial the prosecuting attorney made it plain that he was relying on the events occurring the night of July 26 and the early morning of July 27.
The state’s witnesses testified that they went to the home of the appellant at 3:30 in the morning of July 27, 1957. A light was on in the bathroom. Through an uncurtained window the prosecutrix was seen going from the location of appellant’s bedroom into the bathroom. They again “knocked and finally broke down the front door. The appellant, in undershorts, was in bed with the covers over his head; a pair of panties, a blouse, a pair of white shoes and some facial tissues were on the floor by the bed. The sixteen-year-old girl was found hiding behind the garments in a clothes closet off the bathroom. She was wearing a brassiere and a pair of peddle pushers. She put on the white shoes found in defendant’s bedroom before she left the house. These facts alone would support a verdict of contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
This was the time and place, the immediate circumstances wherein the appellant was charged with committing statutory rape, as well as all other necessarily included offenses. Statutory rape and its included offenses are not confined to commission at the very instant of penetration, else how could assault with intent to commit rape be a lesser included offense. State v. McLain, 74 Ariz. 132, 245 P.2d 278.
I believe that the refusal of the trial court to instruct the jury on contributing to the delinquency of a minor, a necessarily included offense in statutory rape, was under the: facts of this case a violation of Rule 295, Rules of Criminal Procedure, and that it constituted reversible error.
I am, therefore, of the opinion that the judgment of conviction should be reversed and a new trial granted.
BERNSTEIN, J., concurs in the dissent.