Opinion ID: 1890713
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the jury was properly instructed on the sexual abuse charges

Text: Banks's final argument is that the jury was improperly instructed on the four sexual abuse convictions [4] because the conduct supporting these charges was merely a continuing course of the conduct supporting the sodomy and incest charges. He argues the preliminary rubbing and touching supporting the sexual abuse charges was part of a single continuous act culminating in the acts of sodomy, and, accordingly, those acts merged with the sodomy and did not constitute a separate crime. In Bills v. Commonwealth, 851 S.W.2d 466 (Ky.1993), the defendant was charged with, among other things, sodomy and first-degree sexual abuse. The defendant forced the victim to drive to a remote area where he removed her clothing and forced her to perform oral sex on him. We held that the acts of removing the clothing and the forced sodomy did not merge, stating, The act of touching while removing the clothing was totally unnecessary and independent of the act of oral sodomy. Id. at 471-472. Similarly, the acts of touching and rubbing preliminary to the sodomy in this case were totally unrelated to the actual sodomy. The abusive acts of touching and rubbing did not merge into the acts of sodomy, and Banks was properly convicted of the first-degree sexual abuse charges. Id. Banks' reliance on Stark v. Commonwealth, 828 S.W.2d 603 (Ky.1991), (overruled on other grounds by Thomas v. Commonwealth, 931 S.W.2d 446 (Ky. 1996)), is misplaced. In Stark we held that two robbery charges would not lie when business funds and an individual's property were taken during a single robbery incident on the basis that [t]his is simply a continuing course of conduct and a single criminal impulse. We stated: Herein we have but a single act constituting a single offense and violation of only one statute (KRS 515.020). When the impulse is single, only one indictment lies. The present interpretation of Section 13 of the Kentucky Constitution which prohibits an accused from being placed in double jeopardy for the same offense, prohibits the Commonwealth from carving out of one act or transaction two or more offenses. Ingram v. Commonwealth, Ky., 801 S.W.2d 321 (1990). The prohibition extends to indicting appellant both for robbery in the first degree of Mr. Muth, individually, and indicting appellant for the robbery of Mr. Muth in his counterpart status as Sav-a-Step Food Mart. Id. at 607. In Stark , by any standard there was but a single act by the defendant, during which two forms of property (personal and business) were stolen. In contrast, as noted above, in the present case two unrelated acts occurred: the acts of rubbing and touching, which comprise the first-degree sexual abuse convictions, and the separate and unrelated acts of sodomy, which comprise the first-degree sodomy convictions. As such, Stark is not applicable to the present facts.