Booze v. State

Jerome Antonio Booze, a Lyft driver, picked up a 20-year-old woman, E.F., from outside a bar in the early morning hours after she had been drinking heavily. When they could not get through the gate of her apartment complex, Booze eventually had sex with her in the back seat of his car. E.F. later reported she had been raped, and Booze was convicted of rape in Cobb County and sentenced to life in prison, to serve 35 years. On appeal, Booze argued that Georgia's rape statute was too vague to have warned him his conduct was criminal, that the evidence was not enough to convict him, and that the trial judge gave faulty jury instructions on mistake of fact and on the concept of constructive force. The Supreme Court of Georgia rejected all three arguments, finding the statute has long incorporated a well-understood rule that sex with a woman whose will is lost to intoxication is rape, that the evidence of E.F.'s extreme intoxication was sufficient, and that the jury instructions were legally correct. The conviction was affirmed.

Georgia's rape statute is not unconstitutionally vague as applied because it incorporates a common-law rule, understood for over a century, that sex with a woman whose will has been lost through intoxication is rape, and the evidence of the victim's extreme intoxication was constitutionally sufficient to convict.

The ruling confirms that Georgia's rape law, unchanged in its core wording since the 1800s, gives clear enough warning that having sex with someone too intoxicated to consent is criminal, and it clarifies for trial courts and lawyers statewide what instructions on constructive force and mistake of fact are proper in such cases.

Affirmed

1. The court applied the fair-notice test for due process, which asks whether a criminal statute, as written or as explained by courts, makes clear at the relevant time that certain conduct is illegal, so that people are not punished under standards that are too vague to understand.
2. Because Georgia's rape statute has long been interpreted, going back over a century of case law, to mean that sex with a woman whose will is temporarily lost due to intoxication counts as forcible rape, the court found the law gave fair warning that this kind of conduct could be prosecuted.
3. Applying that rule to the facts, the court found the signs of the victim's extreme intoxication (slurred and incoherent speech, vomiting, inability to walk or stay awake without help) were so obvious that a reasonable person in Booze's position would understand the law could apply to him, defeating his vagueness challenge.
4. Turning to the sufficiency of the evidence, the court used the standard from Jackson v. Virginia, asking only whether a reasonable jury could have found guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and concluded the evidence of the victim's incapacity and Booze's shifting explanations to police was enough to support the rape conviction.
5. On the jury instructions, the court held that adding a correct legal principle, that mistake of fact is no defense if caused by the defendant's own fault, to the standard mistake-of-fact charge was not improper, and that refusing Booze's requested language requiring proof of specific intent to use force was proper because rape is a general-intent crime, not a specific-intent crime.

• rape conviction
• void for vagueness
• constructive force
• jury instructions
• intoxication and consent