Court Opinion

ID: 9739624
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:18:40.289699+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:13.243954
License: Public Domain

SULLIVAN, Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I fully concur with respect to Parts I, and II of the majority opinion. Except to the extent that my dissent would impact upon resentencing, I also concur as to Part IV. I respectfully dissent, however, as to Part III.
The majority relies upon Richeson v. State (1998) Ind., 704 N.E.2d 1008, in holding that the jury need not be instructed in an attempted rape case that the defendant have the intent to accomplish the crime of rape. To be sure, Richeson does state that “we expressly limit Spradlin to attempted murder.” Id. at 1010. This is not to say, however, that the holding of Riche-son is applicable to all attempt crimes except attempted murder. As a matter of fact, even in the factual setting of Riche-son, an attempted battery case which could not have resulted in a conviction of any greater than a Class B felony, the court noted that the requisite mens rea, i.e., knowingly or intentionally, must be applied “to the attempted result, the battery itself’ rather than to the substantial step. Id. at 1010 n. 4. In other words, in the context of the case before us, Richeson requires that the jury be informed that the defendant must have intended to achieve a knowing or intentional rape.
A different and more significant factor convinces me that Richeson did not hold that all attempt offenses other than attempted murder are excepted from a Spradlin type analysis. To be sure, Richeson embraced within its holding attempt prosecutions which involve “either stringent penalties, or ambiguity, but not both.” Richeson, supra, 704 N.E.2d at 1011 (footnotes omitted). Presumably then, prosecutions which involve both an ambiguity in an instruction concerning the application of a requisite intent, and a felony carrying a “stringent penalty” are subject to a Spradlin type analysis.
The Richeson court went to great pains to note that the attempted murder conviction involved in Spradlin subjected the defendant to a “penalty that is two and one-half to fifty times higher than the penalty for attempted battery.” Id. at 1011 (Emphasis in original). It is imperative to note that the attempted rape conviction here involved is a Class A felony and in this regard, is identical to the attempted murder conviction of Spradlin.
Therefore, while bound by the statement in Richeson that Spradlin is limited to attempted murder cases, Richeson does not preclude this court from applying an analogous principle, perhaps drawn from the wisdom of Spradlin, to cases substantially similar in consequence.5 I would apply a principle analogous to that of Spradlin to cases which by instructions to the jury are likely to be confusing with respect to mens rea and intent and which involve a penalty for a Class A felony. This *1009is such a case and for that reason I would reverse the attempted rape conviction and remand for a new trial upon that charge.

. In discussing varying case definitions of “specific intent," Richeson cites to Wells v. State (1991) Ind.App., 568 N.E.2d 558 for the proposition that "[i]n the attempted rape context, specific intent has meant that the defendant must have taken a substantial step toward the commission of a knowing or intentional rape, but not a reckless one.” Richeson, supra, 704 N.E.2d at 1009 n. 1. This citation should not give rise to an inference that an attempted rape defendant, facing sentencing for a Class A felony, need not have intended to achieve a knowing or intentional rape. Wells was decided before the decision in Spradlin was issued, and it merely applied generally then understood concepts of "knowingly or intentionally” with respect to jury instructions.