Court Opinion

ID: 9792129
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:23:34.821884+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:40.677740
License: Public Domain

SCHAUER, P. J.
I concur in the judgment as to count I and in the opinion so far as it supports that portion of the judgment. I dissent as to the affirmance of count II.
In my opinion the offense of “assault by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury” is necessarily included within the type of forcible rape charged in the information and depicted in the evidence in this case. The main opinion, whether or not it recognizes the fact, proceeds on a failure to distinguish between the offense of battery and that of assault. Assault does not require actual application of force. It is “an unlawful attempt, coupled with a present ability, to commit a violent injury on the person of another.” (Pen. Code, § 240.) A battery is “any willful and unlawful use of force or violence upon the person of another.” (Pen. Code, § 242.) An assault “by any means of force likely to produce great bodily injury” is by section 245 of the Penal Code made *334punishable as a felony. It was of this type of assault that defendant was convicted under count II.
Certainly it is conceivable that the same defendant could commit two distinct crimes involving the same victim on the same day. One of those crimes could be forcible rape and one could be assault by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury. But the main opinion here does not treat of any such situation. The conviction in this case stands not upon any separate incident but solely upon the acts of defendant in committing the crime of forcible rape of which he was convicted under count I. His acts in committing the rape are precisely the same acts upon which his conviction under count II depends.
It is to be remembered that “assault” is only an attempt to commit battery. The very force necessary to overcome the resistance essential to constitute the offense of forcible rape, coupled with the implications of such attempt, which if successfully carried out include not only physical, mental, and psychic shock, but also a likelihood of causing the victim to become pregnant, should be held to be such as is “likely to produce great bodily injury.” Surely pregnancy as a result of forcible rape is great bodily injury. So also is the “outrage to the person and feelings of the female” which constitutes the essential guilt of rape.
I am not willing to hold that as a matter of law a woman who has been forcibly raped has not suffered great bodily injury. Furthermore, the fact as to whether the ultimate object of the rape is fully accomplished is not necessarily material; i.e., complete penetration and emission are not essential to constitute the crime of rape; neither is either essential to constitute the crime of assault by means of force likely to produce great, bodily harm. Since an assault is merely an “unlawful attempt... to commit a violent injury, ’ ’ the attempt does not need to reach fruition. If the attempt is carried fax enough to ■constitute rape then indubitably it has been carried far enough to evidence the “unlawful attempt” constituting assault. The necessary implications of the force used in such attempt have been previously surveyed.
The judgment as to count II should be reversed.
Appellant’s petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied November 27,1942.