Opinion ID: 1595830
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Doubling of Aggravating Circumstances

Text: Smith contends that the trial court improperly doubled the aggravating factors that the murder was committed during the course of a sexual battery upon a child under the age of twelve and that the victim of the murder was under the age of twelve. However, the State correctly notes that during trial proceedings, defense counsel contended that improper doubling with the victim-age aggravating circumstances would occur if the trial court also found and applied the aggravating factor that the murder was committed during the course of aggravated child abuse. Thus, defense counsel never asserted improper doubling based upon the sexual battery charge. [16] Smith contends for the first time on appeal that the application of the committed during the course of a sexual battery upon a person under the age of twelve and the under the age of twelve aggravating factors would constitute improper doublers. Therefore, the instant challenge is unpreserved and procedurally barred from appellate consideration. See Perez v. State, 919 So.2d 347, 359 (Fla.2005) (holding that for an issue to be preserved for appeal, the specific legal argument or ground to be argued on appeal must have been presented to the lower court), cert. denied, 547 U.S. 1182, 126 S.Ct. 2359, 165 L.Ed.2d 285 (2006). However, even if defense counsel had asserted below that a determination and application of both of these aggravating circumstances would result in improper doubling, the position is without merit. We have previously explained: Improper doubling occurs when both aggravators rely on the same essential feature or aspect of the crime. Provence v. State, 337 So.2d 783, 786 (Fla.1976). However, there is no reason why the facts in a given case may not support multiple aggravating factors so long as they are separate and distinct aggravators and not merely restatements of each other, as in murder committed during a burglary or robbery and murder for pecuniary gain, or murder committed to avoid arrest and murder committed to hinder law enforcement. Banks v. State, 700 So.2d 363, 367 (Fla. 1997) (emphasis supplied). As a result, the focus in an examination of a claim of unconstitutional doubling is on the particular aggravators themselves, as opposed to whether different and independent underlying facts support each separate aggravating factor. Sireci v. Moore, 825 So.2d 882, 885-86 (Fla.2002). We conclude that these two aggravators are separate and distinct because one is based exclusively upon the age of the victim and the other is based upon the commission of a totally separate, different, and additional felony at the time of the murder (i.e., sexual battery), regardless of whether it is a child who is the victim of that contemporaneous felony. Indeed, to conclude that the in the course of a sexual battery aggravator cannot also be found and applied with the under the age of twelve aggravator would produce illogical results. The committed in the course of a felony aggravator lists numerous felonies to which it applies, including robbery, burglary, or arson. Under Smith's interpretation, if a child dies while the defendant commits arson or a robbery, two aggravators may be found and applied by the trial court, simply because the contemporaneous felony does not provide a specific reference to the age of a child. Conversely, a defendant who sexually batters and murders a child will only be subject to one statutory aggravator. Neither a jury nor a sentencing court should be precluded from considering as an aggravating circumstance that the murder occurred during the commission of a second violent felony simply because the defendant murdered a child and the additional felony includes an age component. Section 921.141(5)(d), Florida Statutes (2004), lists sexual battery not sexual battery upon a child under the age of twelveas a qualifying crime for application of this aggravating circumstance, and these two aggravators are not merely restatements of each other and do not rely upon the same essential feature or aspect of the crime. Banks, 700 So.2d at 367. Accordingly, the trial court did not err when it found and applied both of these aggravators to the murder here. We deny relief on this claim.