## Facts

- Oney Langley, a servicemember, was charged with **assault with intent to commit rape** and tried by **court-martial**.
- The government’s case depended on proving that Langley assaulted the victim while intending to commit rape.
- Langley raised two defenses at trial: **intoxication** and **mistake of fact** as to the victim’s lack of consent.
- The military judge instructed the members that Langley should be found not guilty of assault with intent to commit rape if he **mistakenly believed** the victim was consenting and that **belief or mistake was reasonable**.
- The members convicted Langley.
- The **Court of Military Review** affirmed the conviction.
- Langley appealed to the **United States Court of Military Appeals**, arguing the instruction was wrong because it required his mistake about consent to be **both honest and reasonable**, rather than **honest only**, to defeat a **specific-intent** charge.

## Issues

1. In a prosecution for assault with intent to commit rape, does a mistake of fact as to the victim’s consent have to be **reasonable**, or is an **honest** mistake sufficient to negate the required specific intent?
2. Did the military judge commit reversible error by instructing the members to apply an **honest-and-reasonable** mistake-of-fact standard?

## Decision

- The court held that **assault with intent to commit rape is a specific-intent offense**.
- The court held that, for this offense, a mistake of fact about consent need only be **honest** to negate the specific intent; it **need not be reasonable**.
- The court concluded the military judge’s “honest and reasonable” instruction **misstated the law**.
- The court set aside the affirmed result and **remanded for further proceedings** consistent with the correct mistake-of-fact standard.

## Legal Principles

- Assault with intent to commit rape requires proof of an assault plus a **specific intent** to commit rape (including intent to proceed without consent and to overcome resistance by force, as required for the offense charged).
- For **specific-intent** crimes, an **honest** mistake of fact can defeat liability because it shows the accused did not actually form the required intent, even if the mistake would seem unreasonable to others.
- An instruction that conditions an intent-negating mistake-of-fact defense on **reasonableness** can permit conviction even when the members believe the accused **lacked the specific intent**, and is therefore erroneous when the law does not impose an objective requirement.
- While the reasonableness of a claimed belief may affect how factfinders evaluate whether the belief was genuinely held, it is not a legal element of the defense where the offense requires specific intent and the mistake is offered to negate that intent.

## Conclusion

United States v. Langley held that because assault with intent to commit rape is a specific-intent offense, an accused’s mistake of fact about the victim’s consent defeats the charge if the belief was honestly held, even if it was unreasonable; the court therefore found error in a court-martial instruction requiring the mistake to be both honest and reasonable and sent the case back for proceedings under the proper standard.


United States v. Langley, 33 M.J. 278 (1991)