Title: Jackie Cornelius Williams v. State Of Florida

State: florida

Issuer: Florida Supreme Court

Document:

Supreme Court of Florida 
 
 
____________ 
 
No. SC06-594 
____________ 
 
JACKIE CORNELIUS WILLIAMS, 
Petitioner, 
 
vs. 
 
STATE OF FLORIDA, 
Respondent. 
 
[May 10, 2007] 
 
PARIENTE, J. 
 
In this case we answer a question certified by the Second District Court of 
Appeal to be of great public importance: 
May the crime of lewd or lascivious battery prohibited by section 
800.04(4), Florida Statutes (2002), be a permissive lesser included 
offense of the crime of sexual battery charged pursuant to section 
794.011(3), Florida Statutes (2002)? 
Williams v. State, 922 So. 2d 418, 422 (Fla. 2d DCA 2006).  We have jurisdiction.  
See art. V, § 3(b)(4), Fla. Const.  For the reasons that follow, we answer the 
certified question in the affirmative and approve the decision of the Second 
District. 
FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY 
 
The State charged Williams by information with sexual battery with a deadly 
weapon or use of force likely to cause serious personal injury under section 
794.011(3), Florida Statutes (2002).  Williams proceeded to a trial before a jury.  
At trial, the alleged victim, who was fifteen at the time of the incident, testified that 
she and Williams, who told her he was nineteen, met and became friends in the fall 
of 2002.  She testified that on a visit to Williams’ house in May 2003, Williams 
violently raped her and then attempted to kill her to keep her from calling the 
police.  During the struggle, she grabbed a pair of scissors from Williams and 
stabbed him in the shoulder.  The struggle moved out of Williams’ house and into 
the street, where a motorist interceded.  The alleged victim suffered a cut on her 
eyebrow requiring seven stitches, cuts on her finger, and a bite mark.  There was 
no indication of trauma to her vulva, hymen, vagina, or cervix. 
 
In a taped interview and again while testifying at trial, Williams, twenty-
nine, stated that he and the alleged victim had consensual sex, but she then became 
aggressive when he said he would not leave his wife and son for her.  He stated 
that she attacked him with scissors, then ran outside and told a woman in a car that 
Williams raped her and was trying to kill her.  The officer who interviewed him 
testified that Williams had stab wounds and was bleeding from his left bicep and 
lower leg.  Williams testified that the alleged victim had lied to him about her age. 
 
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The State requested the trial court to instruct the jury on the lesser included 
offenses of lewd or lascivious battery under section 800.04(4)(a), sexual battery 
without physical force and violence likely to cause serious personal injury under 
section 794.011(5), and simple battery under section 784.03, Florida Statutes 
(2002).  Defense counsel objected to the instruction on lewd or lascivious battery 
as a lesser included offense, relying on prior case law and further relying on the 
absence of lewd or lascivious battery from the Schedule of Lesser Included 
Offenses for the crime charged.  Over defense objection, the trial court instructed 
the jury on lewd or lascivious battery under section 800.04(4)(a) as the first lesser 
included offense of the charged crime, as follows: 
 
Before you can find the defendant guilty of lewd or lascivious 
battery, the State must prove the following two elements beyond a 
reasonable doubt.  One, [V.G.] was 12 years of age or older, but less 
than 16 years of age; and two, that the defendant committed an act 
upon her in which the sexual organ of the defendant penetrated or had 
union with the vagina of [V.G.].  Neither the victim’s lack of chastity 
nor the victim’s consent is a defense to the crime charged. 
The trial court also instructed the jury on sexual battery without physical force and 
violence likely to cause serious personal injury, under section 794.011(5), which is 
listed on the Schedule of Lesser Included Offenses as a necessarily lesser included 
offense of sexual battery under section 794.011(3), and further instructed on simple 
battery.  The jury found Williams guilty of the lesser included offense of lewd or 
lascivious battery. 
 
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On appeal, the Second District rejected Williams’ argument that lewd or 
lascivious battery is under no circumstances a lesser included offense of sexual 
battery with a deadly weapon or use of actual physical force likely to cause serious 
personal injury.  The Second District determined that the information alleged the 
statutory elements of lewd or lascivious battery and the evidence at trial supported 
each of the elements:  sexual activity as defined in section 800.04 and a victim age 
twelve to fifteen.  Accordingly, the Second District held that the trial court 
correctly instructed the jury on lewd or lascivious battery as a lesser included 
offense.  Williams, 922 So. 2d at 421.  However, because “[i]ssues concerning the 
1999 amendments to section 800.04 seem to be arising with some frequency,” the 
Second District certified the question of great public importance as to whether 
lewd or lascivious battery prohibited by section 800.04(4) can be a permissive 
lesser included offense of sexual battery charged pursuant to section 794.011(3).  
Id. 
ANALYSIS 
 
The analysis that follows first answers the certified question and explains 
why lewd or lascivious battery under section 800.04(4)(a) should be considered a 
permissive lesser included offense of sexual battery with a deadly weapon or 
physical force likely to cause serious personal injury under section 794.011(3).  
Second, the analysis shows that the information and evidence presented at trial 
 
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encompassed the elements of lewd or lascivious battery, justifying an instruction 
thereon.  Because these matters involve solely legal determinations based on 
undisputed facts, our review of the Second District’s decision is de novo.  See 
State v. Florida, 894 So. 2d 941, 945 (Fla. 2005). 
A.  The Certified Question  
 
The certified question in this case concerns permissive lesser included 
offenses.  The Court recently explained the distinction between necessary and 
permissive lesser included offenses: 
Lesser included offenses fall into two categories: necessary and 
permissive.  Necessarily lesser included offenses are those offenses in 
which the statutory elements of the lesser included offense are always 
subsumed within those of the charged offense.  State v. Paul, 934 So. 
2d 1167, 1176 (Fla. 2006).  A permissive lesser included offense 
exists when “the two offenses appear to be separate [on the face of the 
statutes], but the facts alleged in the accusatory pleadings are such that 
the lesser [included] offense cannot help but be perpetrated once the 
greater offense has been.”  State v. Weller, 590 So. 2d 923, 925 n.2 
(Fla. 1991). 
Sanders v. State, 944 So. 2d 203, 206 (Fla. 2006) (alteration in original).   
 
Although this Court held in State v. Hightower, 509 So. 2d 1078 (Fla. 1987), 
that lewd and lascivious conduct is not a lesser included offense of sexual battery, 
our decision preceded a major revision to section 800.04 in 1999.  In Hightower, 
we held that “[t]he crime of lewd and lascivious conduct was not and is not a 
necessarily included offense of the crime of sexual battery.”  Id. at 1079.  In Welsh 
v. State, 850 So. 2d 467 (Fla. 2003), we extended this holding to also preclude 
 
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instruction on lewd or lascivious conduct as a permissive lesser included offense of 
capital sexual battery.  Id. at 468.  However, the version of section 800.04 
addressed in both Hightower and Welsh provided that lewd or lascivious conduct 
could only be perpetrated “without committing the crime of sexual battery.”  § 
800.04, Fla. Stat. (1997).  This language was eliminated in the 1999 revision, 
which also created separate subsections for acts defined as lewd or lascivious 
“battery,” “molestation,” “conduct,” and “exhibition.”  Ch. 99-201, § 6, Laws of 
Fla.  In Welsh, the Court explicitly refrained from stating an opinion as to whether, 
under the 1999 revision, “lewd and lascivious conduct is a necessary or permissive 
lesser included offense of capital sexual battery.”  850 So. 2d at 471 n.5.  The 
deletion of the “unique language” in section 800.04 that made lewd or lascivious 
conduct and sexual battery “mutually exclusive,” Hightower, 509 So. 2d at 1079, 
created the possibility that one or more of the offenses specified in that statute 
could constitute lesser included offenses to sexual battery under section 794.011. 
 
In determining whether lewd or lascivious battery is a permissive lesser 
included offense of sexual battery with a deadly weapon or physical force likely to 
cause serious personal injury, the pertinent inquiry is whether the greater crime 
may be charged in a manner encompassing the lesser. 
 
Section 794.011(3) provides: 
 
(3)  A person who commits sexual battery upon a person 12 
years of age or older, without that person’s consent, and in the process 
 
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thereof uses or threatens to use a deadly weapon or uses actual 
physical force likely to cause serious personal injury commits a life 
felony, punishable as provided in s. 775.082, s. 775.083, s. 775.084, 
or s. 794.0115.  
Section 800.04(4)(a) provides that a person who “[e]ngages in sexual activity with 
a person 12 years of age or older but less than 16 years of age” commits lewd or 
lascivious battery.  The definitions of “sexual battery” in chapter 794 and “sexual 
activity” in chapter 800 are identical, both described in pertinent part as “oral, anal, 
or vaginal penetration by, or union with, the sexual organ of another or the anal or 
vaginal penetration of another by any other object.”  Compare § 794.011(1)(h), 
Fla. Stat. (2002) with § 800.04(1)(a), Fla. Stat. (2002).  Further, sexual activity 
with a victim age twelve to fifteen violates both provisions.  Accordingly, when the 
State alleges that the victim was between ages twelve and fifteen in a count 
charging a violation of section 794.011(3) (sexual battery as defined), that charge 
subsumes lewd or lascivious battery under section 800.04(4)(a) (sexual activity as 
defined).   
 
Therefore, lewd or lascivious battery is a permissive lesser included offense 
of sexual battery with a deadly weapon or physical force likely to cause serious 
personal injury.  The certified question should be answered in the affirmative. 
B.  This Case 
 
 
An instruction on a permissive lesser included offense is appropriate only if 
the allegations of the greater offense contain all the elements of the lesser offense 
 
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and the evidence at trial would support a verdict on the lesser offense.  See Welsh, 
850 So. 2d at 470.  If an offense meets the criteria for an instruction and verdict 
choice as either a necessarily or permissive lesser included offense, the State may 
insist on its inclusion, even over defense objection.  See Johnson v. State, 601 So. 
2d 219, 220 (Fla. 1992) (holding that State has right to instruction on permissive 
lesser included offense over defense objection); Gallo v. State, 491 So. 2d 541, 543 
(Fla. 1986) (holding that if State declines to consent to defense waiver of 
instruction on necessarily lesser included offense, waiver is ineffectual and 
instruction must be given), receded from on other grounds by Gould v. State, 577 
So. 2d 1302, 1305 (Fla. 1991).  
 
In this case, the State alleged the elements of lewd or lascivious battery and 
presented sufficient evidence to support a verdict thereon.  In the information, the 
State charged both that the defendant committed an act meeting the definition of 
sexual activity and that the victim was “twelve years of age or older but less than 
sixteen years of age.”  These are the two elements of lewd or lascivious battery 
under section 800.04(4)(a).  At trial, the State presented legally sufficient evidence 
of the sexual activity and age elements of lewd or lascivious battery.  The alleged 
victim testified that she was fifteen at the time of the offense and that Williams’ 
penis penetrated her vagina.  In a statement to police and again in his trial 
 
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testimony, Williams acknowledged that he and the alleged victim engaged in 
penile-vaginal intercourse and claimed that she had lied about her age.   
 
Williams presented two grounds for his objection to the instruction at trial.  
First, he pointed to the absence of lewd or lascivious battery from the list of lesser 
included offenses for sexual battery with a deadly weapon or use of physical force 
likely to cause serious personal injury under section 794.011(3).  However, the 
Schedule of Lesser Included Offenses included in the Florida Standard Jury 
Instructions is not the final authority on lesser included offenses.  Although the 
schedule “is presumptively correct and complete,” Ray v. State, 403 So. 2d 956, 
961 n.7 (Fla. 1981), “[t]rial courts are charged with the responsibility to determine 
and properly instruct the jury on the prevailing law.”  Standard Jury Instructions in 
Criminal Cases (95-1), 657 So. 2d 1152, 1153 (Fla. 1995).  Second, Williams 
relied on Hightower and Welsh, which are inapplicable to the 2002 version of 
section 800.04, and on State v. Robinson, 771 So. 2d 1256 (Fla. 3d DCA 2000), 
which merely cites to Hightower as authority for its conclusion that lewd and 
lascivious conduct is not a necessarily lesser included offense of sexual battery.  Id. 
at 1258.  Thus, neither of these grounds has merit.1  Accordingly, the trial court did 
                                          
 
 
1.  We decline to address Williams’ additional argument that the instruction 
on lewd or lascivious battery constituted reversible error because that offense was 
equal in degree and potential penalty to sexual battery without great force or 
violence, the next lower offense on the verdict form.  That argument was not 
presented to either the trial court or the Second District.  An issue raised on appeal 
 
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not err in overruling the defense objection to the instruction on lewd or lascivious 
battery. 
CONCLUSION 
 
Despite its current absence from the Schedule of Lesser Included Offenses 
for sexual battery with a deadly weapon or use of physical force likely to cause 
serious personal injury, lewd or lascivious battery under section 800.04(4)(a) is a 
permissive lesser included offense of a sexual battery charged under section 
794.011(3).  We therefore answer the certified question in the affirmative and 
approve the Second District’s decision in this case.  
 
It is so ordered. 
LEWIS, C.J., and WELLS, ANSTEAD, QUINCE, CANTERO, and BELL, JJ., 
concur. 
 
NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO FILE REHEARING MOTION, AND 
IF FILED, DETERMINED. 
 
 
Application for Review of the Decision of the District Court of Appeal - Certified 
Great Public Importance  
 
 
Second District - Case No. 2D04-3336 
 
 
(Collier County) 
 
                                                                                                                                        
must first be presented to the lower court, “and the specific legal argument or 
ground to be argued on appeal must be part of that presentation.”  Archer v. State, 
613 So. 2d 446, 448 (Fla. 1993) (quoting Tillman v. State, 471 So. 2d 32, 35 (Fla. 
1985)). 
 
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James Marion Moorman, Public Defender, and Deborah K. Brueckheimer, 
Assistant Public Defender, Tenth Judicial Circuit, Bartow, Florida, 
 
 
for Petitioner 
 
Bill McCollum, Attorney General, Tallahassee, Florida, Robert J. Krauss, Bureau 
Chief, Tampa Criminal Appeals, and Marilyn Muir Beccue, Assistant Attorney 
General, Tampa, Florida, 
 
 
for Respondent 
 
 
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