Court Opinion

ID: 9597372
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:58:09.966518+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:01:37.883905
License: Public Domain

Andree Layton Roaf, Judge, concurring. I concur in affirming this case. Although appellant Donald Heape argues that the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction for sexual indecency with a child,'and contends specifically that he lacked the culpable mental state required for the commission of the offense, he did not make this argument to the trial court in his motion to dismiss, but merely recited his actions and stated that it “does not constitute a solicitation.” Heape further argued to the trial court that he requested no specific sexual act as should be required by the statute, as a basis of his motion to dismiss. Accordingly, I conclude that the argument Heape now raises on appeal, that there was insufficient evidence of the requisite culpable mental state, is not preserved. Heape’s remarks to a fourteen-year-old girl clearly were crude and out of place. However, rather than holding that the rather lame and ridiculous statements made by Heape and the attendant circumstances of this case constituted evidence beyond a reasonable doubt of his criminal intent, I would affirm without addressing the merits. The statute at issue has not been interpreted by this court or the supreme court in its present form. It has evolved significantly over the years, from requiring that a minor be enticed or lured into a vehicle, house or other place for a conviction for “indecent proposal to minor” to attain,1 to the misdemeanor offense of “sexual solicitation of a child” less than fourteen years old,2 to the felony offense of “sexual solicitation of a child” less than fourteen years old,3 to the current “sexual indecency” felony with a person less than fifteen years old.4 Like the traveler who jokes about bombs while waiting in the security line at file airport, Mr. Heape is paying dearly for his loose tongue, in this instance with a felony conviction.   It shall be unlawful for any person with lascivious intent to entice, allure, persuade, or invite, or attempt to entice, allure, persuade or invite, any child under fourteen (14) years of age to enter any vehicle, room, house, office or other place for the purpose of proposing to such child the performance of an act of sexual intercourse or an act which constitutes the offense of sodomy for the purpose of proposing the fondling or feeling of the sexual or genital parts of such child or the breast of such child, if the child be a female, or for the purpose of committing an aggravated assault on such child, or for the purpose of proposing that such child fondle or feel the sexual or genital parts of such person. Ark. Stat. § 41-1126 (Repl. 1964).    (1) A person commits sexual solicitation of a child, if being eighteen (18) years old or older, he solicits any person not his spouse who is less than fourteen (14) years old to engage in sexual intercourse, deviate sexual activity or sexual contact. (2) Sexual solicitation of a child is a class A misdemeanor. Ark. Stat. § 41-1810 (Repl. 1977).    (a) A person commits sexual solicitation of a child if, being eighteen (18) years old or older, he solicits any person not his spouse who is less than fourteen (14) years old to engage in sexual intercourse, deviate sexual activity, or sexual contact. (b) Sexual solicitation of a child is a Class D felony. Ark. Code Ann. § 5-14-110 (Repl. 1997) (the 1995 Amendment reclassified this offense as a “Class D felony”).    (a) A person commits sexual indecency with a child if: (1) Being eighteen (18) years old or older, the person solicits another person who is less than fifteen (15) years of age or who is represented to be less than fifteen (15) years of age to engage in sexual intercourse, deviate sexual activity, or sexual contact. Ark. Code Ann. § 5-14-110 (Supp. 2003).