Court Opinion

ID: 9560533
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:50:35.823316+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:11:29.594359
License: Public Domain

CARDINE, Justice,
specially concurring.
The court has concluded that the indecent liberties statute is not a lesser-included offense to second degree sexual assault because:
a) Second degree sexual assault requires that the victim be less than the age of 12 years, whereas the indecent liberties statute requires less than 18 years;
b) Second degree sexual assault requires penetration. Indecent liberties requires immodest, immoral or indecent liberties.
A minor of the age of 12 is under the age of 18. We have held that penetration is an act that constitutes immodest, immoral and indecent liberties. The majority rule is that indecent liberties is a lesser-included offense based upon the cognate test which is as follows:
The lesser offense is related and, hence, ‘cognate’ in the sense that it has several elements in common with the greater offense but may have one or two elements not essential to the greater crime.
State v. Jeffries, 430 N.W.2d 728, 731 (Iowa 1988) (cited in Craney v. State, 798 P.2d 1202, 1205, n. 6 (Wyo.1990)). Without more, it would seem clear that immodest, immoral and indecent liberties is a lesser-included offense to second degree sexual assault.
The Washington Supreme Court, however, has recently held that indecent liberties is not a lesser-included offense of either first degree statutory rape or second degree statutory rape. State v. Markle, 118 Wash.2d 424, 823 P.2d 1101, 1109 (1992). That court decided that it was not a lesser-included offense because the indecent liberties statute contains a knowledge requirement that the rape statute does not require. Markle, 823 P.2d at 1107. Our indecent liberties statute provides as follows:
Any person knowingly taking immodest, immoral or indecent liberties with any child or knowingly causing or encouraging any child to cause or encourage another child to commit with him any immoral or indecent act is guilty of a felony, and upon conviction shall be fined not less than one hundred dollars ($100.00) nor more than one thousand dollars ($1,000.00) or imprisoned in the penitentiary not more than ten (10) years, or both.
W.S. 14-3-105 (emphasis added). Our statute contains a knowledge requirement not found in our second degree sexual assault statute. The required mental state is a significant factor which, for this reason rather than that cited by the court, prevents a lesser-included status for the indecent liberties statute regardless of the age or specific facts. I would hold, therefore, *1392that because the indecent liberties statute contains an element of the crime not found in the sexual assault statute that indecent liberties is not a lesser-included offense to second degree sexual assault.