McGahee v. State

561 So. 2d 333, 1990 WL 48648
CourtDistrict Court of Appeal of Florida
DecidedApril 18, 1990
Docket89-1884
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 561 So. 2d 333 (McGahee 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
McGahee v. State, 561 So. 2d 333, 1990 WL 48648 (Fla. Ct. App. 1990).

Opinion

561 So.2d 333 (1990)

Rubin C. McGAHEE, Appellant,
v.
STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. 89-1884.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, First District.

April 18, 1990.
Rehearing Denied June 12, 1990.

*334 Robert J. Link of Howell, Liles & Milton, Jacksonville, for appellant.

Robert A. Butterworth, Atty. Gen., Carolyn J. Mosley, Asst. Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, for appellee.

SHIVERS, Chief Judge.

Appellant, Rubin C. McGahee, appeals his 1989 conviction of one count of rape pursuant to the versions of section 794.01, Florida Statutes in effect during 1971 and 1972. We reverse appellant's conviction for the reasons set out below.

The record on appeal indicates that appellant was arrested in October of 1988 and charged in a second amended information with two counts of rape of a female child under the age of ten years, in violation of section 794.01, Florida Statutes. Both counts were alleged to have occurred between January 1, 1971 and October 1972. Count I specifically charged appellant with placing his penis in the victim's mouth, while Count II charged him with placing his tongue in her vagina.

Within 1 1/2 hours after his arrest, appellant gave both an oral and a written statement confessing to having fondled and performed oral sex on the then 8-year-old victim over a 4-6 month period during 1971 and 1972. Appellant's motion to suppress the statements was denied, as was his motion to dismiss the second amended information on the basis that it failed to state a violation of section 794.01, Florida Statutes (1971). A jury trial was conducted in June of 1989, at which the State presented the testimony of six witnesses. Appellant did not take the stand at trial. Further, appellant's counsel admitted during both opening statement and closing argument that the prosecutor's allegations were true, but took the position that the acts committed by the appellant did not constitute the offense of rape as defined in the versions of section 794.01 in effect during 1971 and 1972.

After closing argument, the jury was given the following instruction on rape over defense counsel's repeated objections:

It is the crime of rape for any male person to carnally know and abuse a female child under the age of ten years. Carnal knowledge includes sexual intercourse, but that is not all that carnal knowledge includes. The word carnal is derived from the Latin word meaning flesh. The word pertains to the body, its passions and its appetites. It extends to the gratification of animal appetites or lust upon the body of another.
The essential elements of this offense which must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt before there can be a conviction in this case are, one, that the victim was a female child under the age of ten years; two, that there was actual penetration of the victim's bodily orifice, whether oral by the defendant's penis or vaginal by the defendant's tongue. That completes the elements.

After deliberating for approximately 4 1/2 hours, the jury found appellant guilty as charged on Count I of the information, and not guilty on Count II. Appellant was later sentenced to 40 years incarceration.

The operative language of the 1969, 1971, and 1972 versions of section 794.01 provides that "whoever ... unlawfully or carnally knows and abuses a female child under the age of ten years" is guilty of the *335 offense of rape. All three versions of the statute provide that it "shall not be necessary to prove the actual emission of seed, but the crime shall be deemed complete upon proof of penetration only." In 1973, the statute was amended to delete its application to females only, and was changed to read "Whoever ... unlawfully and carnally knows and abuses a child under the age of 11 years, shall be guilty of a life felony... ." The 1969 and 1971 statutes also included Chapter 800, which prohibited crimes against nature (section 800.01), unnatural and lascivious acts (section 800.02), and lewd and lascivious or indecent assault or acts on or in the presence of a child (section 800.04).

At the time of the offenses alleged in this case, the crime of rape as prohibited by section 794.01 was defined in Florida case law as sexual intercourse only, and required penetration of the female sex organ by the male sex organ. See, e.g., Wright v. State, 199 So.2d 321 (Fla. 1st DCA 1967) (interpreting an earlier version of 794.01 having language identical to that in the 1969-1972 versions as requiring intercourse); Askew v. State, 118 So.2d 219 (Fla. 1960) (interpreting an earlier version of 794.01 with the same language as the 1969-1972 statutes, as having two elements: (1) penetration of the female private parts by the private male organ, and (2) force); State v. Bowden, 154 Fla. 511, 18 So.2d 478 (1944) (defining the portion of section 794.01 applying to females over the age of 10)). In addition to the case law, the 1972 version of the Florida Standard Jury Instruction on rape of a female under the age of 10 (which appellant proposed prior to trial) listed the elements of section 794.01 as follows:

(1) that (the prosecutrix) was a female child under the age of 10 years.
(2) that there was an actual penetration of the female organ of the said (prosecutrix) by the male organ of (defendant).

At the same time that section 794.01 was being construed to prohibit intercourse, the courts were construing oral and anal penetration as violations of section 800.01, prohibiting crimes against nature. In Delaney v. State, 190 So.2d 578 (Fla. 1966), the supreme court held that the previous opinions of the supreme court "clearly advise all people that in this state the abominable crime against nature includes copulation either by mouth or by anus," and concluded that section 800.01 prohibited oral copulation and afforded the defendant "notice that the act complained of was a crime in this state with at least the degree of definiteness required by our constitution." Id. at 582.

The above interpretations of sections 794.01 and 800.01 first began to change in 1971. In that year, a defendant convicted under section 800.01 for oral and anal copulation with another consenting male challenged the constitutionality of section 800.01. The supreme court found section 800.01 to be unconstitutionally void on its face for vagueness, and reversed and remanded for the defendant to be adjudicated guilty of the lesser-included offense of section 800.02. In so doing, the court stated: "We anticipate and recommend legislative study of the subject and, pending further legislation in the matter, society will continue to be protected from this sort of reprehensible act under Section 800.02 [prohibiting unnatural and lascivious acts]." Franklin v. State, 257 So.2d 21, 24 (Fla. 1971). The Franklin decision, released on December 17, 1971, was specifically held to have prospective effect only.

Several months after Franklin, the supreme court reversed the conviction of a defendant found guilty under section 800.01 for committing oral copulation upon a female victim. As in Franklin, the supreme court reversed the conviction and remanded with directions to adjudicate the defendant guilty of violating section 800.02 — a misdemeanor — based on the unconstitutionality of section 800.01. Parisi v. State, 265 So.2d 699 (Fla. 1972).

The next case addressing this subject was Brinson v. State, 278 So.2d 317 (Fla.

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561 So. 2d 333, 1990 WL 48648, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mcgahee-v-state-fladistctapp-1990.