4 Cal. 4th 354, 14 Cal. Rptr. 2d 441, 841 P.2d 961 (1992)
On Saturday, November 4, 1989, Deborah S. and her sister Jenny S. were staying at the Episcopal Sanctuary homeless shelter at Eighth and Market Streets in San Francisco after arriving from Wichita, Kansas approximately two weeks earlier.1 Deborah waited outside the shelter while Jenny went inside.2 Defendant Wash Jones Williams, a 52-year-old electrician, volunteer, and resident at the shelter who stood 6 feet 1 inch tall and weighed 220 pounds, approached the 28-year-old Deborah, who was 5 feet 1 inch tall and weighed 117 pounds.3 Williams suggested getting coffee with no strings attached, and the pair spent the morning walking, talking, and eating.4
Williams purchased a bracelet for Deborah from a street vendor on Turk Street. He led her to the Dahlia Hotel, rang the buzzer, rented a room, and requested a sheet from the clerk.5 Once inside the room, Deborah noticed there was no television.6 Deborah attempted to leave but could not release the bolt lock.7 According to Deborah's testimony, Williams punched her in the left eye.8 Williams pushed her onto the bed.9 Williams ordered her to remove her pants while stating he did not like to hurt people.10 Williams engaged in sexual intercourse for 10 to 15 minutes despite her screams and efforts to push him off.11
Williams testified to a different version of events, stating that Deborah hugged and kissed him upon entering the room, initiated removal of her clothes, fondled him for 10 to 15 minutes to overcome his impotence as a diabetic, and inserted his penis into her vagina.12 After the encounter, Deborah returned to the shelter, obtained directions to the nearest police station, walked to the San Francisco Hall of Justice, and reported that she had been raped, at which point her eye was swollen shut.13
An officer took Deborah's statement and drove her to the hospital, where she waited approximately seven hours for an examination.14 The examining nurse and doctor observed that the eye injury was more consistent with a punch than a slap.15 Vaginal slides showed the presence of semen.16 Deborah had additional complaints of pain and tenderness consistent with her account.17 She appeared scared during the exam.18 Williams was convicted of two counts of forcible rape and one count of false imprisonment.19 The trial court instructed the jury on consent but refused to give the requested instruction on reasonable and good faith but mistaken belief as to consent.20 The jury convicted Williams on all counts, and he was sentenced to eight years in state prison. The Court of Appeal reversed, finding substantial evidence supported giving the requested instruction based on Deborah's willing accompaniment to the hotel, her lack of objection to the bedsheet, Williams's account of events inside the room, and the clerk's failure to hear screams or sounds of violence.21
Whether a trial court is required to give a requested instruction on a rape defendant's reasonable and good faith but mistaken belief of consent when the evidence consists of wholly divergent accounts of the encounter?22
A trial court must give a Mayberry instruction only when substantial evidence supports both the subjective component and the objective component.23 The subjective component requires that the defendant honestly and in good faith believed the victim consented.24 The objective component requires that the belief was reasonable under the circumstances.25 This in turn requires evidence of the victim's equivocal conduct on the basis of which the defendant could have erroneously believed consent existed where it did not.26
No. The established facts present two irreconcilable accounts.27 Deborah testified that Williams punched her in the left eye, blocked her exit, pushed her onto the bed, and forced intercourse despite her screams and resistance.28 Williams testified that Deborah initiated hugs and kisses, fondled him to overcome his impotence, and inserted his penis into her vagina with actual consent.29 These wholly divergent accounts supply no middle ground of equivocal conduct that could support a reasonable but mistaken belief in consent.30
The trial court was not required to give the requested Mayberry instruction on reasonable and good faith but mistaken belief of consent.31
Related opinions on this issue
Justice Mosk concurs in the judgment reversing the Court of Appeal.32 He rejects the majority's analysis as insufficiently deep and unsound.33 Mosk maintains that the reasonable-and-honest-belief defense is not limited to mistaken beliefs.34
The defense does not require evidence of equivocal conduct.35 Consent by the complainant and a reasonable belief by the defendant in that consent are compatible.36 The jury could have credited portions of each witness's testimony to find that Deborah became apprehensive inside the room.37
She engaged in conduct supporting a reasonable belief in consent even if she did not actually consent.38 Mosk concludes that the trial court erred by refusing the instruction.39 The error was not prejudicial because the jury's guilty verdicts under proper instructions necessarily rejected the defense.40
Justice Kennard concurs that the defendant was not entitled to the Mayberry instruction.41 She criticizes the majority's equivocal-conduct test as too amorphous.42 She proposes three narrow fact patterns that would warrant the instruction.43
The first involves slight force sufficient to overcome will but not to render a consent belief unreasonable.44 The second involves evidence supporting a reasonable belief that the victim consented to the use of force.45 The third involves substantial time between the force and the intercourse allowing a reasonable belief that participation was voluntary.46
Kennard finds none of these patterns present.47 The evidence showed either no force or substantial force immediately preceding intercourse.48
Whether evidence that the victim willingly accompanied the defendant to a hotel after several hours together, did not object to receiving a bedsheet, and that no screams were heard by the clerk constitutes substantial evidence warranting such an instruction?49
Substantial evidence for a Mayberry instruction exists only when the record contains evidence of equivocal victim conduct.50 Such conduct could lead a defendant to reasonably and in good faith believe consent existed where it did not.51 Evidence of the victim's willingness to spend time with the defendant does not suffice.52 The absence of audible screams also does not suffice if the accounts otherwise show either actual consent or forcible nonconsent.53
No. The established facts demonstrate that Deborah's willing accompaniment to the hotel concerned only her agreement to spend time with Williams.54 The clerk's failure to hear screams is explained by the clerk possibly leaving the floor.55 This sheds no light on Williams's state of mind.56 Williams's own testimony established actual consent rather than a mistaken belief.57 Deborah's testimony established forcible rape without any equivocal middle ground.58
The cited circumstances do not constitute substantial evidence warranting a Mayberry instruction.59
Whether the Court of Appeal correctly determined that the trial court's refusal to give the requested instruction required reversal of the convictions?60
No. The established facts show that the jury convicted Williams of forcible rape after receiving proper instructions on the elements of the crime.63 Those instructions included the requirement of intent and lack of consent.64 The verdicts necessarily found that Williams acted with at least reckless disregard of consent and force.65 This finding rejected any reasonable belief in consent.66 The instructional omission was therefore nonprejudicial.67
The Court of Appeal erred in reversing the convictions on the ground that the Mayberry instruction should have been given.68