Court Opinion

ID: 9682532
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 08:12:51.328375+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:39.991849
License: Public Domain

Steele Hays, Justice, dissenting. I wholly disagree that deviate sexual activity by the appellant was not sufficiently proved because the victim did not state specifically that her vagina was penetrated by her assailant’s tongue. That seems needlessly explicit. Her testimony that she was forced to submit to the appellant’s having torn off her panties, “licked my bottom”, “messed around awhile”, and then raped her, ought to satisfy even the most meticulous appellate review. I can see nothing to be gained by requiring this seventy-eight year old victim to undergo another public description in fine detail of a revolting and horrifying experience. We frequently accept the obvious import of the victim’s testimony in these cases, even where literal words of penetration are lacking. Why should this one be treated differently? We have said that penetration may be inferred from circumstances, even when the victim is unable to say it occurred. In Whitmore v. State, 263 Ark. 419, 565 S.W.2d 133 (1978) we upheld a conviction involving deviate sexual activity. The facts given us in the opinion are that the victim, an eleven-year-old boy, spent the night with the accused, who gave him Sleep-Eze pills at bedtime. During the night the victim had to go to the bathroom because he felt something like grease coming out of his rear end. He described the substance as white and transparent, like Vaseline. We said these circumstances gave rise to more than mere suspicion, that the reasonable inference to be drawn left little room for doubt. In Hice v. State, 268 Ark. 57, 593 S.W.2d 169 (1980) we applied a common sense interpretation of our statutory requirement that the vagina be penetrated which, I believe, should guide us in this case. In that case, involving the rape of a nine-year-old girl, there was no evidence of penetration of the vagina, though there were signs of irritation, reddening and tenderness of the labia leding to the hymen, which is at the entrance of the vagina. We acknowledged that while the vagina may not have been penetrated, we concluded the legislature did not intend a literal interpretation of vaginal penetration, as evidenced by use of the words “however slight.” We said it was essentially immaterial whether the vagina was penetrated, that it would border on the ridiculous to construe the statute as requiring evidence of actual penetration of the vagina when in many instances the victim would not even know whether the required depth of penetration had occurred. That reasoning applied with equal force here. A lengthy list of cases could be compiled where evidence of penetration was marginal at best, and in some instances non-existent, yet we inferred it even where the victim could not, or did not, supply it. Scantling v. State, 271 Ark. 678, 609 S.W.2d 925 (1981), Hamblin v. State, 268 Ark. 497, 597 S.W.2d 589 (1980), Gardner v. State, 263 Ark. 739, 569 S.W.2d 74 (1978), Leasure v. State, 251 Ark. 887, 475 S.W.2d 535 (1972), Havensv. State, 217 Ark. 153, 228 S.W.2d 1003 (1950), Needham v. State, 215 Ark. 935, 224 S.W.2d 785 (1949), Hudspethv. State, 194 Ark. 576, 108 S.W.2d 1085 (1937), Poe v. State, 95 Ark. 172, 129 S.W. 292 (1910). The Commentary to Ark. Stat. Ann. § 41-1801 makes it clear that our statutes intend the term deviate sexual activity to include oral sex, when accomplished by compulsion, irrespective of whether the victim is forced to submit to it, or forced to perform it. Our statutes also provide that penetration need occur only in the slightest degree, even in literal rape, where there is far greater necessity for a clear line of demarcation between actual rape and attempted rape. But where the offense is deviate sexual activity of the sort presented by this case, what good purpose is served by requiring an explicit description of the act when the inference is clear? Isn’t the sexual privacy and integrity of one person sufficiently violated for purposes of criminal prosecution when she is forced to submit to having her sexual organs violated by the mouth and tongue of an assailant on threat of death? The very act which this victim described as having been performed upon her ought to fully satisfy the statutory definition of deviate sexual activity. I would affirm the judgment of the trial court.