Court Opinion

ID: 9683306
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 13:26:19.323451+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:46.991364
License: Public Domain

McCORMICK, Judge,
concurring.
I write only to make it clear that this is not a case of “statutory rape.” V.T.C.A., Penal Code, Section 21.02(b)(4), is not such a provision as the Court of Appeals’ opinion mistakenly implies.
The Court of Appeals created an analogy between the victim’s mental deficiencies and the rape of a child statute. Since the Court reasoned that “the only distinctions between the complainant and a nine- or ten-year-old child are her chronological age and physical maturity,” it concluded the analogy to the rape of a child provisions was of assistance in analyzing the sufficiency of the evidence under Section 21.02(b)(4). This incorrect conclusion led to the following faulty observation:
“The victim whose chronological age is under seventeen is presumed to lack the sufficient capacity to consent. The adult victim whose mental capacity is on an under-seventeen developmental level is not entitled to the presumption. Her incapacity is a matter of proof at trial. Once sufficient proof is offered to demonstrate that her mental functions are within that developmental range, she is entitled to the same protection from sexual depredation.” (Emphasis added)
This observation is wrong and requires correction lest it find its way into the law.
Children under seventeen are not presumed by the law to be incapable of consent, their consent is simply irrelevant. Unlike rape, the offense of statutory rape is complete with or without the consent of the complainant. See Calais v. State, 624 S.W.2d 811 (Tex.App.1981); McKinney v. State, 505 S.W.2d 536 (Tex.Cr.App.1974); Hindman v. State, 152 Tex.Cr.R. 75, 211 S.W.2d 182 (1948). However, consent is still the crucial element to rape under Section 21.02(b)(4), supra, though it may be found lacking when the perpetrator “knows that as a result of mental disease or defect” the victim “is at the time of the intercourse incapable either of appraising the nature of the act or of resisting it.” The statute prohibits rape without consent, not intercourse with a mentally deficient person.
Children are protected “from sexual depredation” as well as normal sexual relations under the rape of a child statute by reason of their chronological age, which as any parent can attest may or may not be indicative of their “developmental range.” Simply because an adult’s mental functions are within a particular developmental range, medically associated with a particular age *100group, does not entitle the adult to the protection given a child.
TOM G. DAVIS, CLINTON and CAMPBELL, JJ, join in this concurrence.