Court Opinion

ID: 9844860
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:10:32.983873+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:15:45.572770
License: Public Domain

JOHNSON, Justice,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
Although I concur with the other parts of the Court’s opinion, I respectfully dissent from part III (Mistake of Age Is Not a *344Defense to Sexual Battery of a Minor Child of Sixteen or Seventeen Years of Age).
In my view, the proper analytical framework to address this issue is that contained in the lead opinion in State v. Stiffler, 117 Idaho 405, 406-10, 788 P.2d 220, 221-25 (1990). Although the opinion, which I authored, indicates that both Chief Justice Bakes and Justice Boyle concurred, Justice Boyle’s “special concurrence” clearly indicates that he did not embrace the analytical framework contained in the lead opinion. Therefore, this analytical framework received only the votes of myself and Chief Justice Bakes, making it only a plurality view. Because of the fracturing of the votes in Stiffler, there was no majority view of the analytical framework to be used in reaching the result there.
I continue to adhere to the analytical framework contained in the lead opinion in Stiffler. Applying this framework to the present case leads me to conclude that the crime here is a specific intent crime and that, therefore, mistake of age is a defense. Whatever the purpose of the sexual battery law is considered to be, it was not to prevent illegitimate teenage pregnancies, as the Court has said is the purpose of the statutory rape law. Stiffler, 117 Idaho at 407, 788 P.2d at 222 (quoting State v. LaMere, 103 Idaho 839, 843, 655 P.2d 46, 50 (1982)).
Concerning the other purposes the legislature may have had in passing the sexual battery law at issue here, the lead opinion in Stiffler correctly points out:
We concede that the protection of girls from conscienceless men is a purpose that would not be violated by a requirement of specific criminal intent before conviction. As to that purpose, it is the conscience or state of mind of the perpetrator that is at issue. Likewise, exploitation focuses on the advantage gained by the perpetrator of the act. This is a state of mind of the perpetrator, not an effect on the female.
117 Idaho at 407, 788 P.2d at 222.
Also, the design of the statute indicates that this is a specific intent crime. To commit the crime, a person must have the “intent of arousing, appealing to or gratifying the lust, passion, or sexual desires of such person, minor child, or third party.”
I would vacate the conviction and remand the case for a new trial, allowing Oar to pursue the defense of mistake of age.