State v. Gonzales

366 N.W.2d 775, 219 Neb. 846, 1985 Neb. LEXIS 1018
CourtNebraska Supreme Court
DecidedMay 3, 1985
Docket84-692
StatusPublished
Cited by30 cases

This text of 366 N.W.2d 775 (State v. Gonzales) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Nebraska Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Gonzales, 366 N.W.2d 775, 219 Neb. 846, 1985 Neb. LEXIS 1018 (Neb. 1985).

Opinion

Grant, J.

Defendant-appellant, Inez Gonzales, a male person over the age of 19 years, was charged in an information with the crime of sexual assault in the first degree in that he did “subject a child of less than sixteen years of age to sexual penetration” on or about May 13, 1984, in Scotts Bluff County, Nebraska. Defendant pled not guilty to the charge. After jury trial defendant was *847 convicted of the charged crime and sentenced to 4 to 8 years in the penal complex. Defendant timely appealed, alleging as error that the trial court incorrectly instructed on the elements of the crime; that the trial court erred in failing to instruct on the allegedly lesser-included offense of sexual assault in the third degree; that the trial court erred “in admitting inadmissable [sic] hearsay testimony” before the jury; and that the trial court erred in refusing to direct a verdict in favor of defendant and dismiss the case because the State failed to prove the allegations of the information against defendant. We affirm.

Evidence before the jury included facts which, if believed by the jury, established that on the evening of May 12,1984, and in the early morning hours of the next day, the victim of defendant’s acts, a young boy 13 years old, was babysitting at the home of the boy’s Aunt Melva. Defendant lived with the aunt and was the father of three of her four children. At approximately 2 a.m. on May 13, 1984, defendant returned alone to the house where the victim was babysitting. In a room separate from where the younger children were sleeping, defendant removed the victim’s undershorts and placed the victim’s penis into defendant’s mouth. Later, defendant pushed the victim into a different room, knocked the victim onto the floor, and pushed defendant’s penis into the victim’s mouth. When defendant left the victim, the victim dressed quickly, went outside the house, and ran to his home, about one-half mile from the house where he had been babysitting. On his way to his home, running in the darkness, the victim was startled by the sound of a whistle, and thought he heard footsteps. The victim reached home and told his mother what had happened to him. His mother took the victim to the police station about 2:30 a.m., where the incident was reported to a police officer. The police officer saw that the victim was “on the verge of breaking down and crying several times” and that the victim was “[e]xtremely upset and disturbed.”

At the trial the victim testified as to the actions of defendant as set out above. The police officer testified as to the victim’s appearance at the police station. The victim’s mother testified as to what her son, the victim, had told her. The mother’s testimony was admitted in evidence, over defendant’s *848 objection, as the relating of an excited utterance. Defendant’s counsel cross-examined all but one of the State’s witnesses. Defendant did not testify nor adduce any evidence.

Defendant’s first and fourth assignments of error are based on defendant’s contention, at 17 in his brief, that the State wishes “to believe that fellatio performed upon an ‘actor’ by a servient ‘victim’ amounts to a violation of Section 28-319, R.R.S. 1943 by the ‘actor’ .... [T]he statute under which the defendant herein was charged, does not criminalize the act of fellatio under those particular circumstances.” Defendant’s argument rests on the facts of the case showing that defendant forced his penis into the victim’s mouth and that defendant forced the victim’s penis into the defendant’s mouth, and that in either event there has been no “sexual penetration,” as defined in Neb. Rev. Stat. § 28-318(5) (Reissue 1979), because there was no “intrusion, however slight, of any part of the actor’s body.. . into the genital or anal openings of the victim’s body ... .”

In taking that position defendant ignores the legislative definition of “sexual penetration,” which, as set out in § 28-318(5), defines that term as “sexual intercourse in its ordinary meaning, cunnilingus, fellatio, anal intercourse, or any intrusion, however slight, of any part of the actor’s body or any object manipulated by the actor into the genital or anal openings of the victim’s body . . . .” (Emphasis supplied.) The term “sexual penetration, ” as defined by the Legislature for the purpose of proscribing the crime of sexual assault in the first degree, means more than actions constituting a penetration, as that term is ordinarily defined. For criminal purposes the crimes of sexual assault in the first degree and sexual assault in the third degree are clearly differentiated. “Sexual penetration,” as defined above, is necessary for the crime of sexual assault in the first degree, while “sexual contact,” as defined in § 28-318(4), is necessary for the crime of sexual assault in the third degree. The act of fellatio is a form of sexual penetration, by statutory definition, whether the victim’s “intimate parts” (defined in § 28-318(2) as “the genital area, groin, inner thighs, buttocks, or breasts”) are touched or not. In this case, where defendant has engaged the victim’s mouth with the defendant’s penis, the defendant has committed *849 fellatio and has thus been guilty of “sexual penetration.”

Insofar as defendant alleges that the trial court did not correctly define the appropriate terms, the court’s instructions told the jury that “[f]ellatio shall mean oral stimulation of the penis.” The last five words of the definition are set out verbatim in Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged 836 (1968) in the definition of the term, preceded by the words “the practice of obtaining sexual satisfaction by . . . .” The court’s definition is accurate. Even in this age, the court need not go into further and precise urogenital detail. Defendant’s first and fourth assignments of error are without merit.

Defendant’s second assignment of error is that the trial court erred in refusing to instruct the jury on the lesser-included offense of sexual assault in the third degree. This is another case where the State has offered uncontroverted evidence , on an essential element of the crime. That evidence was not controverted in any way by the defendant’s evidence nor evidence offered by any other witnesses (see State v. Beasley, 214 Neb. 918, 336 N.W.2d 601 (1983)), nor was it weakened in any way by defendant’s cross-examination (see State v. Schwartz, ante p. 833, 366 N.W.2d 766 (1985)). Any lesser offense, under the testimony in this case, could only be determined by pure speculation of the jury as to what occurred other than the facts testified to. That speculation, not supported by any evidence, is not sufficient to require instructions on a lesser-included offense. State v. Tamburano, 201 Neb. 703, 271 N.W.2d 472 (1978). The .trial court was correct in refusing to instruct on a lesser offense.

Defendant’s third assignment of error is that the trial court erred “in admitting inadmissable [sic] hearsay testimony” before the jury.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
366 N.W.2d 775, 219 Neb. 846, 1985 Neb. LEXIS 1018, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-gonzales-neb-1985.