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319 N.C. 34

352 S.E.2d 673

State v. Etheridge

Supreme Court of North Carolina

Decided February 3, 1987

Supreme Court of North Carolina · decided 1987-02-03

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“For you to find the defendant guilty of second-degree rape, the State must prove three things beyond a reasonable doubt. * * =H Second, that the defendant used or threatened to use force sufficient to overcome any resistance the victim might make. The force necessary to constitute rape need not be actual physical force. Fear or coercion may take the place of physical force. And when you come to consider the force sufficient to overcome any resistance the victim might make, you may consider that sexual activity between' a parent and a minor child is not comparable to sexual activity between two adults. The youth and vulnerability of children coupled with the power inherent in a parent’s position of authority creates a unique situation of dominance and control, in which explicit threats and displays of force are not necessary to effect the abuser’s purpose.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including 104 N.C. App. 226 - State v. Hardy

Relies on State v. Alston · 70 N.C. App. 757 - State v. Lester · State v. Hunt

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1987-02-03

How this case has been cited

Cited by 266 later decisions — most recently March 2026 · most notably State v. Eskridge (1988), 125 Wash. 2d 769 - State v. Calle (1995)

28 federal appellate · 222 state decisions

90019871990200020102020decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Justice WEBB

¶1dissenting.

¶2I dissent from that portion of the majority opinion which holds that State v. Alston, 310 N.C. 399, 312 S.E. 2d 470 (1984), does not require that we hold there was insufficient evidence to find the defendant guilty of second degree sexual offense.

¶3In Alstonthe evidence showed that the defendant had abused the prosecuting witness on past occasions and had, on the occasion in question, forced her to accompany him by twisting her arm. He also threatened to “fix her face.” This Court said the evidence showed that the victim had a general fear of the defendant and that the sexual intercourse was against her will. This Court nevertheless said “absent evidence that the defendant used force or threats to overcome the will of the victim to resist the sexual intercourse alleged to have been rape, such general fear was not sufficient to show that the defendant used the force required to support a conviction of rape.” Id. at 409, 312 S.E. 2d at 476. (Emphasis in original.) I do not see how we could have a clearer holding that, although a victim may be justifiably afraid of *52a person and may testify that she only submitted because of a fear of what he might do if she did not submit, there still must be evidence of force or of a specific threat if she does not submit in order for the jury to find there was force. I do not believe this is consistent with reality but it is the way I believe Alstonhas to be read.

¶4In this case the majority distinguishes Alstonon the ground that the sex act in this case is between a father and his minor son. I agree that a father stands in a position of authority towards his son and that the son could have a legitimate fear of not doing the father’s will. The difficulty for me with the majority’s distinction is that the victim in Alstonhad an equal fear and yet this Court held there had to be a specific threat. That is the reason I believe the majority’s distinction between this case and Alstonis one without a difference.

¶5For the reasons stated in this dissent I believe it is error to overrule State v. Lester, 70 N.C. App. 757, 321 S.E. 2d 166 (1984), aff’d per curiam, 313 N.C. 595, 330 S.E. 2d 205 (1985), without overruling Alston.

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