Title: State v. Hernandez
Citation: 596 So. 2d 671
Docket Number: 77834
State: Florida
Issuer: Florida Supreme Court
Date: April 2, 1992

596 So. 2d 671 (1992)
STATE of Florida, Petitioner,
v.
Francisco HERNANDEZ, Respondent.
No. 77834.

Supreme Court of Florida.
April 2, 1992.
Robert A. Butterworth, Atty. Gen., and Joan Fowler, Sr. Asst. Atty. Gen., Chief, Criminal Law, and Sarah B. Mayer, Asst. Atty. Gen., West Palm Beach, for petitioner.
Douglas N. Duncan of Wagner, Nugent, Johnson, Roth, Kupfer &amp; Rossin, P.A., West Palm Beach, for respondent.
McDONALD, Justice.
We review Hernandez v. State, 575 So. 2d 1321 (Fla. 4th DCA 1991), because it conflicts with Bergen v. State, 552 So. 2d 262 (Fla. 2d DCA 1989). We have jurisdiction. Art. V, § 3(b)(3), Fla. Const. The issue we address is: When an individual commits a single act of lewd behavior in front of more than one child, can that person be charged with and convicted of a separate count of lewd act for each child present? We answer the question in the negative, approve the decision under review, and disapprove Bergen.
Two girls, ten and eleven years old, claimed that Hernandez exposed himself and masturbated in front of them and that he lifted up one of the girls' shirt and fondled her breasts. The State charged Hernandez with one count of lewd assault by fondling a child's breasts and two counts of lewd act by exposing himself and masturbating in front of the two girls. The jury convicted Hernandez on all three counts as charged.
On appeal the district court reversed Hernandez' convictions and held, among other things,[*] that he could not be convicted *672 of and sentenced for two counts of lewd act based upon a single incident of improper behavior in front of two children. Bergen, on the other hand, allowed five convictions under subsection 800.04(3), Florida Statutes (1987), when the defendant masturbated in the presence of five children. We disagree with Bergen.
Section 800.04, Florida Statutes (1987), provides:
As observed in Lifka v. State, 530 So. 2d 371, 373 n. 1 (Fla. 1st DCA 1988):
The size of the audience or the number of witnesses should not determine the number of allowable convictions under subsection 800.04(3); rather, the number of distinct lewd acts should be determinative. In this case Hernandez allegedly committed one lewd act, not two. The fact that two minor girls observed it does not make the single act two crimes.
We believe that the legislature intended that a lewd act, though seen by more than one person, be one crime and subject to only one conviction. We approve the decision under review.
It is so ordered.
SHAW, C.J., and OVERTON, BARKETT, GRIMES, KOGAN and HARDING, JJ., concur.
[*]  Hernandez has been granted a new trial, and thus we do not find it necessary to address the district court's handling of the instruction issue.