Issue: Under Virginia law, what criminal liability may be imposed on a counselor who sexually abuses a client?
| Area of Law: | Criminal Law |
| Keywords: | Aggravated sexual battery; Mental incapacity |
| Jurisdiction: | Virginia |
| Cited Cases: | 9 Va. App. 176 |
| Cited Statutes: | Va. Code Ann. § 18.2-67.3(A)(2), (4) (2014); Va. Code Ann. § 18.2-67.10(6) (2014) |
| Date: | 02/01/2015 |
Aggravated sexual battery occurs when a person sexually abuses the complaining witness and “[t]he act is accomplished through the use of the complaining witness’s mental incapacity or physical helplessness . . . or the act is accomplished by force, threat, or intimidation.” Va. Code Ann. § 18.2-67.3(A)(2), (4) (2014). “‘Sexual abuse’ means an act committed with the intent to sexually molest, arouse, or gratify any person, where [t]he accused intentionally touches the complaining witness’s intimate parts or material directly covering such intimate parts [or] the accused forces the complaining witness to touch the accused’s, the witness’s own, or another person’s intimate parts or material directly covering such intimate parts . . . [and] the act is accomplished through the use of the complaining witness’s mental incapacity or physical helplessness . . .” Va. Code Ann. § 18.2-67.10(6) (2014).
The jury instruction for aggravated sexual battery provides:
The Commonwealth must prove beyond a reasonable doubt each of the following elements of that crime:
(1) That the defendant sexually abused [name of person] ; and
(2) That at the time of the offense [name of person] was mentally incapacitated; and
(3) That at the time of the offense the defendant knew or should have known [name of person] was mentally incapacitated; and
(4) That the sexual abuse was accomplished through the use of [name of person’s] mental incapacity.
Va. Crim. Jury Instruction 30.18.
In Holcomb v. Commonwealth, a pastor, Roger Holcomb, was convicted of sexually abusing several children. Holcomb […]