Threatened hardship to the victim or her family is not a form of duress which will support a conviction for forcible sexual offenses under Penal Code sections 288 and 289. The court based much of its reasoning on the fact that in 1994, the Legislature amended relevant statutes by deleting the word “hardship” from the statutory list of types of pressure which elevated the offense to a forcible one. Here, the perpetrator was the victims stepfather, and the prosecutor argued his threats to leave the home (depriving her brothers of a father figure and her mother of a boyfriend and later husband) if she did not submit amounted to hardship.
Case Summaries