Case Name: STATE of Florida, Appellant, v. Thomas Daniel O'BRIEN, Appellee
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1994-03-31
Citations: 636 So. 2d 92
Docket Number: No. 93-1754
Parties: STATE of Florida, Appellant, v. Thomas Daniel O’BRIEN, Appellee.
Judges: GRIFFIN, J., concurs and concurs specially with opinion.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 636
Pages: 92–97

Head Matter:
STATE of Florida, Appellant, v. Thomas Daniel O’BRIEN, Appellee.
No. 93-1754.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fifth District.
March 31, 1994.
Rehearing Denied May 9, 1994.
Robert A. Butterworth, Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, and Wesley Heidt, Asst. Atty. Gen., Daytona Beach, for appellant.
Douglas D. Marks of Potter, McClelland, Marks & Healy, P.A., Melbourne, for appel-lee.

Opinion:
W. SHARP, Judge.
The state appeals from an order dismissing an information, which charged O'Brien with multiple counts of sexual battery on a child under the age of eleven years. The information set forth the dates as between January 1, 1983 and December 1984. The trial court held a hearing patterned after Dell'Orfano v. State, 616 So.2d 33 (Fla.1993). Without giving the state a chance to amend the information, the trial court ruled the state failed to show it had exhausted all reasonable means to narrow the time frame alleged for when the crimes took place and that O'Brien would be prejudiced in the preparation of his defenses. We reverse.
Although the trial court's ruling comes to us with the presumption of correctness, we think the record in this case fails to establish a basis for dismissal of the information with prejudice. In this case, a child victim testified and tried to pin down the three dates she was allegedly sexually abused by O'Brien.
At the hearing, the child testified she had worked with her mother and a counselor days before the hearing to pin down the time more specifically. She was able (for the first time) to recall the first battery occurred when she was six, in kindergarten. The last occurred when she was eight years old, in November or December of 1984, when she finally told her mother about the abuse, and was removed from the O'Brien home.
As Justice Kogan said in Dell'Orfano, "[w]e recognize that young children often are unable to remember the specific dates on which they were abused...." "Common sense dictates that admitted wrongdoing should not be shielded from prosecution merely because the state is unable to provide greater specificity in an information or indictment." Dell'Orfano, 616 So.2d at 35. In Dell'Orfano, the information stated a time frame thirty-five months long, considerably longer than the time span in this case. The court rejected any "bright line rule" as to time and vagueness. However, it said the state should not be permitted to use a multi-year period where it is "able to narrow the time frame further, but simply refuses to do so in the charging documents, in a statement of particulars, or during discovery."
In this case, it appears the dates relating to the sexual batteries now could be more specifically stated as to time, based on the child-victim's testimony at the hearing; ie., summer of 1982; fall to December of 1984. Rather than dismissing the information with prejudice, however, we think that the court should have given the state a chance to amend the information at least once, or to respond to the defense's motion for a bill of particulars. Only if the state refused to do so, should the information have been dismissed.
O'Brien argues that his alibi defenses will be severely prejudiced because of the ten year lapse of time since the alleged sexual batteries took place, and the vagueness of the time frames alleged in the information. The state should now be able to limit the time frame considerably. But, in any event, O'Brien's alibi defense is not the kind of alibi most jeopardized by lack of a specific time for an alleged crime.
O'Brien was prepared to show he was active in after-school activities and part-time work, so he was rarely in the household when this child-victim was there, and they were never alone. The child-victim was one of many children who were cared for by O'Brien's sister. She was in the O'Brien home where the defendant lived, over a span of three years, summers and winters, daily from early in the morning (4:30 a.m.) to 2:30-3:00 p.m. The kind of alibi defense proferred by O'Brien is less persuasive than some in this context. As the Court said in Dell'Orfano:
The fact that a defendant may advance an alibi of short duration will not necessarily be dispositive when it is clear the defendant had access to the victim throughout the time period, in question, such as where both resided in the same house at all relevant times.
616 So.2d at 35, n. 5.
Accordingly, we reverse the order dismissing the information, and remand to permit the state to amend or file a response to the motion for a bill of particulars, based on the child-victim's testimony at the hearing.
REVERSED and REMANDED.
GRIFFIN, J., concurs and concurs specially with opinion.
THOMPSON, J., dissents with opinion.
. § 794.011(2), Fla.Stat. (1983).
. See Rankin v. State, 143 So.2d 193, 195 (Fla.1962); Dixon v. State, 143 Fla. 277, 196 So. 604, 605 (1940); State v. Perez, 383 So.2d 923 (Fla. 2d DCA 1980) (dismissal extreme sanction); State v. Oliver, 322 So.2d 638 (Fla. 3d DCA 1975) (dismissal of cause within discretion of trial court).
. Fla.R.Crim.P. 3.140(j) and (o).
. Fla.R.Crim.P. 3.140(n).
. The trial court also rebuked the state because it did not refer to an abuse complaint filed by the child-victim's parent in 1984 with regard to a different perpetrator, which apparently included O'Brien. But no report is in the record and there is no showing or finding that this earlier report concerning another defendant contained more specific time allegations as to O'Brien than those in the information.