United States v. Lanier

520 U.S. 259 (1997)

Purchase the Printed Copy at bsmsphd.com

Nature of the Case

To access this section all you need to do is click here and register.

Facts

D was a state Chancery Court judge for two rural counties in western Tennessee. From 1989 to 1991, he sexually assaulted several women in his judicial chambers. The two most serious assaults were against a woman whose divorce proceedings had come before D and whose daughter's custody remained subject to his jurisdiction. The woman applied for a secretarial job at the courthouse, D interviewed her and suggested that he might have to reexamine the daughter's custody. When the woman got up to leave, D grabbed her, sexually assaulted her, and finally committed oral rape. A few weeks later, he again sexually assaulted and orally raped her. D sexually assaulted four other women: two of his secretaries, a Youth Services Officer of the juvenile court over which D presided, and a local coordinator for a federal program who was in Ds chambers to discuss a matter affecting the same court. D was charged with 11 violations of §242, each count alleging that acting willfully and under color of Tennessee law, he had deprived the victim of 'rights and privileges which are secured and protected by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, namely the right not to be deprived of liberty without due process of law, including the right to be free from willful sexual assault.' D moved to dismiss the indictment as void for vagueness. The motion was denied. The judge instructed the jury that the Due Process Clause gives the right to be free of unauthorized and unlawful physical abuse by state intrusion. This right includes the right to be free from certain sexually motivated physical assaults and coerced sexual battery. The physical abuse must be of a serious substantial nature that involves physical force, mental coercion, bodily injury, or emotional damage which is shocking to one's conscience. D was found guilty and appealed. The full Court set aside D's convictions for 'lack of any notice to the public that this ambiguous criminal statute includes simple or sexual assault crimes within its coverage.' The full Sixth Circuit held that criminal liability may be imposed under § 242 only if the constitutional right said to have been violated is first identified in a decision of this Court (not any other federal, or state, court), and only when the right has been held to apply in 'a factual situation fundamentally similar to the one at bar.' Finding no decision applying a right to be free from unjustified assault or invasions of bodily integrity in a situation 'fundamentally similar' to those charged, the Sixth Circuit reversed the judgment of conviction with instructions to dismiss the indictment. P appealed.