Court Opinion

ID: 9673397
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:10:58.672007+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:21.909784
License: Public Domain

Levin, J.
(concurring). I agree that it has not been shown that there is an average rape victim or a typical reaction by a rape victim. Nevertheless it is manifest that the Legislature concluded that at some point a difference in degree becomes a difference in kind, and manifestly this does occur as the differing results in Petrella and Simpson indicate.
While the Court of Appeals in Jenkins erred in positing that there is a degree of mental distress *280that "normally” attends criminal sexual assaults accomplished by force or coercion, the essential approach and direction of the Court of Appeals was correct. Although it has not been shown that there is a normal degree of mental distress or what it might be, the Legislature plainly meant to distinguish between the mental distress that accompanies or follows virtually any sexual assault, which, on the facts shown in Simpson, it made the offense of esc hi and that degree of mental distress, described as "mental anguish,” that aggravates the degree of the offense, as in Petrella, to CSC i.
A judge should explain to the jurors that victims of sexual assaults suffer different degrees of mental distress depending on the facts and circumstances, their life experiences, and psychological make-ups. The jurors should be instructed that the statute distinguishes between a sexual assault where the degree of mental distress is that that may accompany or follow any such assault and a sexual assault where the degree of mental distress constitutes mental anguish. If the jurors find that the defendant committed a sexual assault of the kind shown in Petrella and that mental distress accompanied or followed the assault and the degree of that mental distress constituted mental anguish, it should find the defendant guilty of esc i. If it finds that the mental distress that accompanied or followed the sexual assault so shown did not constitute mental anguish, it should find the defendant guilty of esc hi.
I also agree with the majority that the sufficiency of the evidence is not determined under the clearly erroneous standard, and that in both bench and jury trials the constitutional standard— whether a rational trier of fact could have been *281persuaded that all the elements of the offense were established beyond a reasonable doubt — applies. While that is indeed the correct standard where the defendant seeks a directed verdict, a person may, although there is sufficient evidence, challenge the correctness of the findings of the trier of fact. The question whether there was sufficient evidence to submit the cause to the trier of fact and the question whether the trier of fact erred in finding the defendant guilty are separate questions. A different standard, the clearly erroneous standard, applies where the defendant claims that a judge sitting as trier of fact erred in finding him guilty.