Court Opinion

ID: 9661661
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 22:45:55.473658+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:31.917945
License: Public Domain

ODOM, Judge,
concurring.
The dissenting opinion and Seaton v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 564 S.W.2d 721, upon which it relies, fail to consider the definitions of “bodily injury” and “serious bodily injury” that the Legislature provided in V.T.C.A., Penal Code, Sec. 1.07(a)(7) and (34). The aggravated rape alleged by the State in this case is distinguished from rape under V.T.C.A., Penal Code, Sec. 21.03(a)(2), which provides that rape under Sec. 21.02 becomes aggravated rape if the defendant “compels submission to the rape by threat of death, serious bodily injury, or kidnapping to be imminently inflicted on anyone.”
Specifically, the distinguishing factor in this case is whether appellant threatened serious bodily injury. The statutory definition of that term in Sec. 1.07(a)(34), supra, is:
“ . . . bodily injury that creates a substantial risk of death or that causes death, serious permanent disfigurement, or protracted loss or impairment of the function of any bodily member or organ.”
Bodily injury, on the other hand, means “physical pain, illness, or any impairment of physical condition.” Sec. 1.07(a)(7), supra.
Although I agree, as stated in Rogers v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 575 S.W.2d 555 (quoting from Blount v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 542 S.W.2d 164), and in the dissenting opinion, which proposes to overrule Rogers, that a threat can be communicated by action or conduct as well as words, the issue upon which the sufficiency of the evidence turns is whether a threat of serious bodily injury as that term is statutorily defined was communicated by appellant’s conduct. I concur that the evidence in this case is insufficient to meet the test applying that statutory definition. The lower standard used by the dissent, that the use of force implies a threat of escalating force, would elevate all rapes by force or threats to aggravated rapes and abolish the distinction that the Legislature has created between these two offenses. If that distinction is to be abolished, it must be done by the Legislature and not by this Court. Seaton v. State, supra, to the extent of its conflict with that distinction and with this decision and with Rogers v. State, supra, should be overruled.