Court Opinion

ID: 9748457
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 16:02:13.66425+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:35.444689
License: Public Domain

*1433GRAHAM, J.,* Concurring.
I concur with the result. The significant issue presented here is whether statutorily mandatory imposition of Penal Code section 290 1 registration upon Mr. Thompson, a 36-year-old man who sodomized a 17-year-old developmentally disabled girl, meets constitutional muster. I agree with my colleagues that People v. Hofsheier2 requires reversal, but note Justice Baxter’s cogent dissent in that case.3
However, I remain troubled by the use of the term “voluntary” with reference to the sex act with a young person in this case and that in Hofsheier. The term “voluntary” does not appear in section 286, subdivision (b)(1) or any of the other similar sections set out for the protection of people of tender years from sexual predation. I respectfully suggest that the reason for the omission of that word or any like it is that the Legislature founds this body of law upon the ancient and hopefully still venerable notion that young people cannot be considered to have consented or volunteered to participate in such activity because of their want of years, experience, informed judgment, authority, and autonomy.
In the discussion of sexual crimes, the distinction between those accomplished by force and violence and those not does have a place. There is a class of sexual behavior prohibited by the Penal Code “when the act is accomplished against the victim’s will by means of force, violence, duress, menace, or fear of immediate and unlawful bodily injury on the victim or another person . . . .” (E.g., § 286, subd. (c)(2).) But in acknowledging this distinction we should not employ for mere convenience language which undermines the logical and principled underpinnings of important societal protection and prohibition. The fact that one class of sexual prohibitions is based upon the age of the victims and another is based upon the use of force and violence by the perpetrator does not make sex crimes against children who do not resist “voluntary.” A legal culture which can devote millions of pages to examination of the voluntariness of searches, confessions and criminal pleas can surely afford a little care and ink to avoid confusing and diluting the moral imperative to protect children from sexual predators.
In Hofsheier the Facts and Proceedings section begins: “On April 6, 2003, defendant engaged in voluntary oral copulation with a 16-year-old. girl2” (Hofsheier, supra, 37 Cal.4th 1185, 1193, italics added.) Footnote 2 in Hofsheier may acknowledge the problem created by the unnecessary and unfortunate use of the adjective “voluntary” but I respectfully suggest it does *1434not cure it: Footnote 2 reads: “In this opinion, we use the term ‘voluntary’ in a special and restricted sense to indicate both that the minor victim willingly participated in the act and to the absence of various statutory aggravating circumstances: the perpetrator’s use of ‘force, violence, duress, menace or fear of immediate and unlawful bodily injury on the victim or another person’ (§ 288a, subd. (c)(2)); the perpetrator’s ‘threatening to retaliate in the future against the victim or any other person’ (§ 288a, subd. (c)(3)); and the commission of the act while the victim is unconscious (§ 288a, subd. (f)) or intoxicated (§ 288a, subd. (i)).” (Hofsheier, at p. 1193, fn. 2.)
The problem created is twofold. First, “voluntary” is a substantially developed term of art and borrowing it for an unaccustomed purpose even with a footnote for protection is not likely to assist in a clear understanding of the law. Second, the phrase “voluntary oral copulation with a 16-year-old girl” is effectively front page column one of the opinion (Hofsheier, supra, 37 Cal.4th 1185, 1193) and the disclaimer purporting to redefine the term “voluntary” is effectively nine pages in with the retractions (fn. 2). ( Hofsheier, supra, at p. 1193.) Predictably, the unnecessary phrase in the text will take on a life of its own and the footnote will recede into oblivion. In fact a review of cases, published and unpublished, citing Hofsheier shows this process to be well under way. Our own opinion dutifully includes Hofsheier’s phrase “voluntary oral copulation.” Out of concern for the problem I mention here, the majority has included a qualifying footnote 5. (See maj. opn., ante, at p. 1428.) In People v. Ranscht (2009) 173 Cal.App.4th 1369 [93 Cal.Rptr.3d 800], the Fourth District Court of Appeal refers to “voluntary oral copulation with a 16-year-old minor” and footnote 2 is lost on the cutting room floor. So far, the First, Second and Sixth Districts have done the same in published opinions, adopting the phrase from the text of Hofsheier and omitting the footnote. (In re J.P. (2009) 170 Cal.App.4th 1292 [89 Cal.Rptr.3d 17] [in places substitutes “nonforcible”] [First App. Dist.]; Lewis v. Superior Court (2008) 169 Cal.App.4th 70 [86 Cal.Rptr.3d 565] [Sixth App. Dist.]; People v. Anderson (2008) 168 Cal.App.4th 135 [85 Cal.Rptr.3d 262] [Sixth App. Dist.]; People v. Hernandez (2008) 166 Cal.App.4th 641 [83 Cal.Rptr.3d 29] [Second App. Dist.]; People v. Garcia (2008) 161 Cal.App.4th 475 [74 Cal.Rptr.3d 681] [Second App. Dist.].)4 How could we expect any other result?
*1435The crime is not “voluntary oral copulation with a minor”; the crime is oral copulation with or upon a minor. Unfortunately, we now have a growing body of law which suggests that sex acts with minors may be voluntary or involuntary. While this is not the law, the unnecessary employment of the phrase and the mere attempt in a footnote to excuse its use create a drift in that direction. The law and society presume that the minor does not consent or volunteer for the event because of the age disability. Simply put, the crime is oral copulation (or sex or sodomy) with a minor. Voluntary oral copulation (or sex or sodomy) with a minor is an oxymoron which is capable of substantial damage.

Retired judge of the Marin Superior Court, assigned by the Chief Justice pursuant to article VI, section 6 of the California Constitution.

 All further statutory references are to the Penal Code.

 People v. Hofsheier (2006) 37 Cal.4th 1185 [39 Cal.Rptr.3d 821, 129 P.3d 29] (Hofsheier).

 See Hofsheier, supra, 37 Cal.4th 1185, 1209 (dis. opn. of Baxter, J.).

 More than a score of unpublished opinions from around the state have repeated the unfortunate pattern. One published opinion from the First District, in referring to the Hofsheier holding, omits the adjective “voluntary” instead expending the small effort and space to refer accurately to the “victim’s willing participation, absence of statutory aggravating factors like force or violence.” (People v. Zaidi (2007) 147 Cal.App.4th 1470, 1483 [55 Cal.Rptr.3d 566].) One case from the Second District employs the unfortunate phrase but includes its own footnote 2, reproducing much of the redefinition of the word “voluntary” from the Hofsheier footnote 2. (People v. Manchel (2008) 163 Cal.App.4th 1108, 1110, fn. 2 [78 Cal.Rptr.3d 194].)