Altman v. State

852 So. 2d 870, 2003 WL 21697206
CourtDistrict Court of Appeal of Florida
DecidedJuly 23, 2003
Docket4D01-2714
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 852 So. 2d 870 (Altman v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court of Appeal of Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Altman v. State, 852 So. 2d 870, 2003 WL 21697206 (Fla. Ct. App. 2003).

Opinion

852 So.2d 870 (2003)

Thomas ALTMAN, Appellant,
v.
STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. 4D01-2714.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fourth District.

July 23, 2003.
Rehearing Denied September 3, 2003.

*871 Eugene S. Garrett, Boca Raton, for appellant.

Charles J. Crist, Jr., Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Marrett W. Hanna, Assistant Attorney General, West Palm Beach, for appellee.

TAYLOR, J.

Appellant was convicted of committing a lewd act and three lewd and lascivious assaults on a minor child. The main issue in this appeal is whether appellant's acts of kissing and inserting his tongue into the victim's mouth and rubbing his penis against the victim's vagina, while both were clothed, constitute sexual contact justifying victim injury points under section 921.0011(7), Florida Statutes (1995). We hold that they do and affirm appellant's sentence.

The victim was the seven-year-old daughter of a family friend. At trial, the victim testified that appellant took her to his empty home, turned off the lights, closed the shade, and told her to lie on the bed. Appellant then laid on top of her, face to face, and rubbed his penis up and down against her vagina while they were both clothed. As appellant "humped" the girl, he kissed her, thrusting his tongue against hers. She tried to clench her teeth to stop him, but he put his hand on her chin and forced it down. Afterwards, appellant *872 instructed the child not to tell anyone.

The victim testified that on another occasion, when appellant was alone with the child, appellant laid on a bed, unzipped his pants, and removed his penis. At first he told the child to suck his penis; then he changed his mind and kissed the child with his tongue instead. When he finished tongue-kissing her, he told her not to tell anybody about what had happened. At another time, appellant called the child over to him, behind her cousin who was playing video games nearby, and kissed her with his tongue inside her mouth. Again, he told her not to tell anybody.

Appellant was convicted of three counts of lewd assault by kissing and inserting his tongue into the mouth of the victim, in violation of what was then section 800.04(1), Florida Statutes, and one count of lewd act by positioning himself on the body of the victim and touching, rubbing, or moving his body and/or pelvic area against the victim's, in violation of what was then section 800.04(2), Florida Statutes.[1]

At sentencing, the trial court added eighteen victim injury points for sexual contact to appellant's guidelines score sheet on each count, thus increasing appellant's score by seventy-two points. Appellant's judgment and sentence were per curiam affirmed in Altman v. State, 698 So.2d 1232 (Fla. 4th DCA 1997)(Altman I ). Thereafter, appellant filed a motion for postconviction relief, arguing that he should have been sentenced under the guidelines applicable to crimes committed after January 1, 1994. The court granted the motion for re-sentencing under the 1994 guidelines, but ruled that appellant had waived the issue regarding victim injury points by failing to raise it on his first appeal. In Altman v. State, 756 So.2d 148 (Fla. 4th DCA 2000)(Altman II ), we reversed this ruling and held that appellant could raise the issue of victim injury points at re-sentencing. Id. at 150. Without deciding the merits of appellant's argument, we remanded the case for the trial court to consider the evidence and "to determine whether the facts in this case constituted sexual contact which would justify victim injury points under section 921.0011(7), Florida Statutes (1995)." Id. On remand, the trial court reinstated appellant's sentence.[2]

Appellant argues that the trial court erred in assessing victim injury *873 points for sexual contact, pointing out that no Florida appellate court has upheld points for either (1) rubbing one's clothed genitals against another's or (2) kissing and inserting one's tongue into another's mouth. Our research reveals that courts have upheld sexual contact victim injury points in instances where the offender touched clothed sexual parts of the victim. In Fredette v. State, 786 So.2d 27 (Fla. 5th DCA 2001), the fifth district held that sexual contact includes touching a child's vaginal area, and opined that this would constitute sexual contact even if the touching was over the child's clothing. Id. at 28 n. 2. In so holding, the court cited our opinion in Louis v. State, 764 So.2d 930 (Fla. 4th DCA 2000), wherein we held that touching the victim's chest through her shirt, along with touching her stomach and genital area, involved sexual contact for which victim injury points were properly scored. Id. at 931-32; see also Blackburn v. State, 762 So.2d 989, 990 (Fla. 5th DCA 2000)(holding that defendant's act of rubbing his erect penis on the victim's clothed back while in a department store, in violation of section 800.04(1), constituted sexual contact for proper assessment of victim injury points); Mackey v. State, 516 So.2d 330, 330-31 (Fla. 1st DCA 1987)(affirming victim injury points for sexual contact where defendant fondled a thirteen-year old boy by touching him above the crotch). We conclude that appellant's act of lying on top of the victim with his clothed genitals pressed against hers and "humping" her constitutes sexual contact for which victim injury points were appropriately scored.

A more difficult issue is the propriety of assessing sexual contact victim injury points for appellant's conduct in french-kissing the minor victim.[3] The guidelines statute does not define "sexual contact" for purposes of scoring victim injury points. Nor does a definition appear anywhere in Florida case law.

Recently, in Seagrave v. State, 802 So.2d 281 (Fla.2001), the Florida Supreme Court considered circumstances under which victim injury points may be assessed for "sexual contact" under section 921.0011(7). There, the defendant argued that the trial court had improperly assessed victim injury points following his conviction under section 800.04 for fondling a minor victim's buttocks. He contended that victim injury points should not have been assessed because his conduct did not involve a sexual battery, i.e., a union of the sex organ of one person with the oral, anal, or vaginal opening of another. The court pointed out that:

[U]nder the interpretation of "sexual contact" advocated by Seagrave, section 921.0011(7)(b)2. would be inapplicable to defendants convicted under sections 800.04(1) and (2) of the lewd and lascivious conduct statute, because these subsections prohibit a variety of acts that do not necessarily require the union of a sexual organ of one person with the oral, anal or vaginal opening of another.

Id. at 286. The court disagreed with this position, concluding that the phrase "sexual contact" is not limited to criminal offenses involving sexual union, but is more inclusive. Id.

Although the supreme court did not define "sexual contact" or answer the specific question posed by the first district, i.e., whether fondling the buttocks is sexual conduct, it did offer substantial guidance in interpreting the phrase "sexual contact." Seagrave instructed courts to resort to *874 canons of statutory construction to determine its proper meaning. Id.

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Bluebook (online)
852 So. 2d 870, 2003 WL 21697206, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/altman-v-state-fladistctapp-2003.