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642 S.W.2d 804

Duwe v. State

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas

Decided December 22, 1982

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas · decided 1982-12-22

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“It has been consistently held that an essential element of the offense of indecency with a child is the intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desire of any person. This specific intent is a material fact in the description of the offense that must be specifically alleged in the indictment and is not incorporated in an indictment by the allegations of the general culpable mental states of knowingly and intentionally. Thus, a conviction for indecency with a child requires proof of an additional material fact, the required specific intent, which is not required to be proven for a conviction for aggravated sexual assault under the instant indictment. Under the indictment before us, indecency with a child is not a lesser included offense. In finding appellant guilty of what the trial court believed to be a lesser included offense, the court acquitted the appellant of the primary offense.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including Ryan v. State

Relies on Cumbie v. State · West v. State · Sensabaugh v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1982-12-22

How this case has been cited

Cited by 7 later decisions — most recently July 2006

7 state decisions

40198219902000decided

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.

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¶1OPINION

TOM G. DAVIS, Judge.

¶2Appeal is taken from a conviction for indecency with a child. V.T.C.A. Penal Code, Sec. 21.11. After the jury found appellant guilty, the court assessed punishment at ten years.

¶3At the outset, we are confronted with unassigned error which requires reversal. Appellant was prosecuted under a two-count indictment. The first count alleged rape of a child while the second count alleged indecency with a child. The State elected to proceed under the second count which alleged in pertinent part:

“And the Grand Jury further represents that in Harris County, Texas, Robert Duwe, hereafter styled the Defendant, on or about August 30, 1977, did then and there unlawfully, knowingly and intentionally and with intent to arouse and gratify his sexual desire, engage in sexual contact with K_J_H_, a female under the age of seventeen years and not the spouse of the Defendant, by touching the genitals of the said K_ J-H-” (Emphasis added).

¶4In applying the law to the facts of the case and instructing the jury under what circumstances to convict or acquit, the court charged the jury in the following manner:

“Therefore, if you believe from the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant, Robert Duwe, did, in Harris County, Texas, on or about August 30th, 1977, intentionally engage in sexual contact with K_J_H_, who was then and there a child younger than 17 years, and not the defendant’s spouse, by touching the genitals of the said K-J_H_, you will find the Defendant guilty.”

¶5This Court has held that an essential element of the offense of indecency with a child is the “intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desire of any person.” Victory v. State, 547 S.W.2d 1 (Tex.Cr.App.); Polk v. State, 547 S.W.2d 605 (Tex.Cr.App.); Slavin v. State, 548 S.W.2d 30 (Tex.Cr.App.); Wesley v. State, 548 S.W.2d 37 (Tex.Cr.App.). The jury charge in the instant case failed to include the essential element of “the intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desire of any person.” Such an omission of an essential element of the offense renders the charge fundamentally defective in that it authorizes a conviction for conduct which did not constitute a criminal offense. See Holloway v. State, 583 S.W.2d 376 (Tex.Cr.App.); West v. State, 567 S.W.2d 515 (Tex.Cr.App.); Thompson v. State, 574 S.W.2d 103 (Tex.Cr.App.); Cumbie v. State, 578 S.W.2d 732 (Tex.Cr.App.).

¶6We note that the court’s charge required the jury to find that appellant had “sexual contact” with the complainant. The term “sexual contact” was defined in the court’s charge as “any touching of the anus or any part of the genitals of another person with intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desire of any person.” If it be urged that in applying the law to the facts the court incorporated by reference the definition of “sexual contact” we note that the indictment alleges appellant engaged in sexual contact, “with intent to arouse and satisfy his sexual desire,” (emphasis added), while the definition of sexual contact in the jury charge speaks of an “intent to arouse and gratify the sexual desire of any person.”

¶7We conclude, under these circumstances, that use of the term “sexual contact” in the charging portion of the charge was not sufficient to supply the omitted element as it appeared in the indictment.

¶8The judgment is reversed and the cause is remanded.

¶9McCORMICK, J., dissents.

TEAGUE, Judge,

¶10concurring.

¶11I totally agree that this cause should be reversed for the reasons stated by Judge *806Davis in his majority opinion. I write only because there may be another trial and the additional reversible errors I have found may be revived on a second trial.

¶12I will not elaborate, but will simply state that in my view the State and the trial court committed reversible error when the trial court permitted the prosecutor to question the appellant’s daughter concerning hearsay information that the appellant had implicitly, approximately 4 years prior to the date of the incident in question, sexually molested the daughter. By this record, and in my view, the questions asked, standing alone, constitute reversible error. See Fentis v. State, 528 S.W.2d 590, 592 (Tex.Cr.App.1975); Tippins v. State, 530 S.W.2d 110, 111 (Tex.Cr.App.1975); Mounts v. State, 185 S.W.2d 731 (Tex.Cr.App.1945); Sensabaugh v. State, 426 S.W.2d 224, 227 (Tex.Cr.App.1968); Lamm v. State, 94 Tex.Cr.R. 560, 252 S.W. 535 (1923).

¶13I also find that the State and the trial judge committed reversible error when the trial judge permitted the prosecutor to elicit hearsay and remote testimony from the witness Hunt. See Roman v. State, 503 S.W.2d 252 (Tex.Cr.App.1974).

¶14I,therefore, strongly suggest, in the event of a retrial, that the prosecutor handling this cause closely examine the record of appeal in this cause in order that the same errors that occurred in this cause will not reoccur.

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