Court Opinion

ID: 9557835
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 16:58:32.899657+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:07:33.735805
License: Public Domain

RICHARDSON, J., Concurring and Dissenting.
I concur in parts I and II of the majority opinion, and in the reversal of the judgment as to the kidnaping count. I respectfully dissent, however, from part III of the opinion, and from the modification of the judgment which strikes the finding that defendant inflicted great bodily injury upon his victim during commission of a burglary. In my view, the evidence amply supports a finding of great bodily injury.
As the majority explains, section 461 of the Penal Code (all statutory references are to that code) prescribes enhanced punishment for the intentional infliction of “great bodily injury” upon any occupant of the premises burglarized. (Similar enhancement is prescribed for great bodily injury in the course of rape (§ 264) or robbery (§ 213).) Undoubtedly, as the majority suggests, the foregoing sections were enacted to deter instances of severe violence accompanying a burglary, rape or robbery.
The majority further properly construes section 461 as requiring that a “substantial or significant” bodily injury occur in order to impose enhanced punishment. In addition, by reason of the enactment of section 264, the majority assumes that the term “great bodily injury” refers to more than the psychological or emotional distress' experienced by rape victims generally. This latter point is troublesome, however. It is certainly arguable that rape per se, without any aggravating circumstances whatever, involves a “substantial and significant” bodily injury. (See People v. Cardenas (1975) 48 Cal.App.3d 203, 207 [121 Cal.Rptr. 426]; People v. McIlvain (1942) 55 Cal.App.2d 322, 334 [130 P.2d 131], dis. opn. by Schauer, J.) But even assuming that something more “substantial” than rape is required to constitute great bodily injury, surely that test is satisfied in the present case.
I need not describe in detail the various acts and offenses committed by defendant who, over a two-hour period, forcibly copulated the victim’s vagina, mouth and anus. The victim was pushed, shoved, cut twice by a knife, raped, sodomized and abused to the point of vomiting, diarrhea and hysteria. Her neck wounds were, respectively, three inches and one *591and one-half inches long. Under no reasonable view of the evidence could the victim’s injuries in this case be deemed either “trivial or insignificant.” (See People v. Wells (1971) 14 Cal.App.3d 348, 360 [92 Cal.Rptr. 191]; People v. Richardson (1972) 23 Cal.App.3d 403, 411 [100 Cal.Rptr. 251].)
I would affirm the judgment as to the first degree burglary count.
Clark, J., concurred.