Starks v. State

565 N.E.2d 1142, 1991 Ind. App. LEXIS 92, 1991 WL 9792
CourtIndiana Court of Appeals
DecidedJanuary 30, 1991
DocketNo. 49A02-9002-PC-134
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 565 N.E.2d 1142 (Starks v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Indiana Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Starks v. State, 565 N.E.2d 1142, 1991 Ind. App. LEXIS 92, 1991 WL 9792 (Ind. Ct. App. 1991).

Opinion

SHIELDS, Presiding Judge.

Freddie Starks appeals the adverse judgment on his petition for post-conviction relief.

We affirm.

ISSUE

1. Whether Starks’s guilty plea was neither intelligent nor voluntary because:

a. it was motivated by an improper threat by the State;
[1143]*1143b. he was not advised of the possibility of an increased sentence due to his prior convictions; or
c. he did not understand the terms of his plea agreement.

2. Whether Starks was afforded his right to effective assistance of counsel.

FACTS

Starks was charged with three counts of child molesting as class B felonies, one count of child molesting as a class C felony, and one count of confinement as a class D felony. More than five months later, he filed a written plea agreement. In the agreement Starks agreed to plead guilty to two counts of class B child molesting and to the one count of confinement. In return, the State agreed to dismiss the other two counts and to recommend concurrent sentences “with open sentencing as to any other terms of conditions.” Record at 29.

The guilty plea court accepted the plea and sentenced Starks to two concurrent twenty-year terms and to one concurrent four-year term.

Thereafter, Starks filed his petition for post-conviction relief. Following an eviden-tiary hearing the post-conviction court denied Starks’s petition. This appeal ensued.

DISCUSSION AND DECISION

I.

Starks argues his guilty plea was not made knowingly voluntarily and intelligently-

A.

Count I of the charging information alleged Starks committed an act of deviate sexual conduct (fellatio) with the ten-year old victim; count II alleged an act of coitus with the victim; count III alleged an act of deviate sexual conduct which involved Starks’s sex organ and the victim’s anus; count IV alleged fondling with the intent to arouse or satisfy Starks’s sexual desires; and count V alleged an act of confinement by removing the victim from one residence to another and then to an unknown location. All the acts allegedly occurred on April 30, 1988.

Starks claims his counsel and the guilty plea court misadvised him that seventy-two (72) years, rather than twenty-four (24) years, was the maximum sentence he could receive if he were to go to trial. Citing Ellis v. State (1988), Ind., 528 N.E.2d 60 and Lane v. State (1989), Ind.App., 539 N.E.2d 488, Starks argues the double jeopardy clauses of the United States and Indiana Constitution would have permitted only his conviction on one count of child molesting and one count of confinement for which he could have been sentenced to a maximum of twenty-four (24) years. Starks therefore concludes his guilty plea was not knowing, voluntary and intelligent because it was motivated, induced and coerced by incorrect information as to the maximum term of imprisonment he was facing.

As the result of an assault upon his fifteen-year-old stepdaughter, the defendant in Ellis was convicted of child molesting as a class C felony and as a class D felony, and of incest and rape. In addition he was determined to be an habitual offender. The evidence revealed Ellis fondled the victim and when she resisted his advances, he forcibly raped her. Although the supreme court found the evidence was sufficient to sustain the multiple convictions, it concluded the trial court erred in sentencing Ellis for child molesting as a class C felony and for incest. In so doing, the court stated the multiple sentences were erroneous because “the charging information, although charging two acts of molestation, relied upon the identical incident to support both charges. The trial court committed the same error in sentencing [Ellis] for both the crime of incest and the crime of rape. Here again, the charging information alleged a single act to support both charges.” 528 N.E.2d at 61.

Although it appears from the foregoing statement that the supreme court was saying that “sentences for both fondling and sexual intercourse, under separate subsections of the Child Molesting statute, could not stand because both relied upon the [1144]*1144identical incident” (Appellant’s brief at 18-19) that is not the case. In reaching its decision the Ellis court relied upon its decision in Hansford v. State (1986), Ind., 490 N.E.2d 1083 wherein it stated “[t]he imposition of two sentences for the same injurious consequences which were sustained by the same victim and inflicted by the defendant’s singular act violatives [sic] both federal and state double jeopardy prohibitions.” 490 N.E.2d at 1089. It is important to understand this statement was made in the context of a discussion whether a single injury to a single victim could be used to enhance both a burglary count and a robbery count to class A felonies. There was no question concerning the validity of the convictions for the basic burglary and the basic robbery. Therefore, we conclude the “same injurious consequences” which the Ellis court held could be punished only once was the single act of sexual intercourse. This conclusion is substantiated by the fact the supreme court ordered Ellis’s convictions for the class C felony child molesting and the class D incest expunged and affirmed his convictions for the class D child molesting and the rape as enhanced by the habitual offender determination. Thus, the Ellis court specifically allowed Ellis to be sentenced for both the sexual intercourse and for the fondling which occurred prior to, and distinct from, the sexual intercourse.

In summary, Ellis does not prohibit sentences for both fondling and sexual intercourse, as acts of child molesting, even if the acts arise from the same incident, in the sense of the same occasion, if the acts are distinct and separate and not preparatory and incidental to one another.

Lane is an example of a situation where a conviction of both a class C and a class D child molesting cannot stand because the conduct constituting the class D offense is preparatory and incidental to the class C offense. In Lane the defendant removed the clothing of the victim, fondled her and then engaged in sexual intercourse with her. The two convictions were prohibited by the statutory definition of “included offense” as “an offense that ... differs from the offense charged only in the respect that a less serious harm or risk of harm to the same person ... is required to establish its commission.” IC 35-41-1-16(3) (1988). Although inexorably egregious, the harm from a sexual fondling preparatory and incidental to an act of sexual penetration is less egregious than the harm resulting from the ensuing act of sexual intercourse or deviate criminal conduct.

Here, the evidence is that Starks forced the victim to commit fellatio; then after her unsuccessful attempt to get help, Starks had vaginal and then anal intercourse with the victim. Thereafter, Starks again forced the victim to engage in an act of fellatio, to “lick his butt”, and to again engage in coitus.

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Related

Delahanty v. State
658 N.E.2d 660 (Indiana Court of Appeals, 1995)
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581 N.E.2d 961 (Indiana Court of Appeals, 1991)
Watkins v. State
571 N.E.2d 1262 (Indiana Court of Appeals, 1991)

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Bluebook (online)
565 N.E.2d 1142, 1991 Ind. App. LEXIS 92, 1991 WL 9792, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/starks-v-state-indctapp-1991.