Court Opinion

ID: 9848913
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:29:46.872588+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:53.360356
License: Public Domain

Birdsong, Presiding Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully enter my dissent to the majority’s conclusion that because “statutory” rape is a distinct and separate crime from rape, the prescribed denial of appeal bond in a case of “rape” in OCGA § 17-6-1 (d) has no application to the crime of statutory rape.
My disagreement does not lie in the obvious fact that rape and statutory rape are separate crimes and require proof of different elements any more than I could not disagree that malice murder and felony murder are different offenses in that the two crimes also require proof of different offenses.
However, notwithstanding the majority’s efforts to show by a statutorily prescribed similarity in type in malice murder and felony murder as distinguished from the lack of a statutorily prescribed similarity in rape and statutory rape, the similarities simply will not evaporate. Malice murder involves an unlawful killing of another with premeditation and an evil heart. Felony murder eliminates the requirement for malice (i.e., premeditation) because the law traditionally has recognized that one who has the requisite evil mind and pro*251pensity to commit a felony is also likely (to the satisfaction of proof thereof in the eyes of the law) to possess the malice sufficient to kill regardless of the actual intent to do so. Likewise, rape involves the unlawful and illicit carnal intercourse by a male with a female not his wife against her will as manifested by force or fear. Statutory rape in all respects also requires the unlawful and illicit carnal intercourse by a male with a female not his wife. The only distinction is the absence of force or fear, and the law traditionally has supplied the element “against her will” by the legal presumption that a child under the age of 14 cannot consent whether there is or is not present force or fear. Thus, the state’s argument that murder is murder, rape is rape, and robbery is robbery, etc., is a persuasive and controlling argument. I would affirm the trial court’s denial of the appeal bond.
Decided September 26, 1985.
Susan C. Janowski, for appellant.
Harry D. Dixon, Jr., District Attorney, Richard E. Currie, Assistant District Attorney, for appellee.
I respectfully dissent. I am authorized to state that Presiding Judge Deen and Presiding Judge McMurray join in this dissent.