Court Opinion

ID: 9626337
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 08:09:00.389206+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:06:25.934424
License: Public Domain

HENRIOD, J.,
dissenting.
I dissent, respectfully suggesting that the main opinion has confused the necessary intent involved in an assault with intent to commit rape, with a drunken, poor and unsuccessful show of salesmanship. There is no violence here of the type generally attending the serious offense charged, where more than a woman’s feelings are injured. There was no torn clothing, no scratches, lesions or bruises. The only evidence of intent to overpower by force was a roving hand and a firm embrace, — both of which became relaxed when the defendant found himself, not in the arms of the prosecutrix, but in those of Morpheus.
To say the facts of this case justify a conclusion that the acts showed beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused had the specific intent to overpower by force, or that his actions were such as to be unexplainable on any reasonable hypothesis other than that of intent to overpower, is, to the writer, unrealistic and not reflected in the record.1
*597It is difficult to comprehend a rape by one who sleeps, and equally difficult to' contemplate a person bent on sex by force, succumbing to peaceful slumber. To convict here is to punish for violating the biblical canon that “as a man thinketh, * * * so is he.” Fortunately, such a doctrine has received little or no support from the courts. — otherwise few would be spared the prison’s lament..
It is believed that had the prosecution charged an assault, the facts more nearly would have fitted the offense.' The facts of the Whittinghill case, with its evidence of scratching, bruising and some unnecessary roughness, seem stronger than those here, where the best that can be said is that a firm desire yielded to sweet repose. The accused either was too drunk to have a specific intent to rapé, or too tired to acquire one.

People v. Mullen, . . . Cal. .. ., 114 P. 2d 11 (1941).