Opinion ID: 901462
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: Effects of the Crime on the Victims

Text: [¶58.] Blair's argument that his conduct was less severe in nature and therefore deserving of punishment at the lower end of the scale seems to suggest that the circuit court should have taken into account the degree of offensiveness demonstrated by Blair's taste in child pornography. Blair argues that his offense is deserving of a lesser punishment because no sex act other than masturbation was depicted, and because Blair did not direct the girls to engage in the conduct filmed. [17] However, the statute does not differentiate between the various prohibited sexual acts or rank the acts from severe to less severe and require that punishment be adjusted accordingly. [¶59.] Blair does concede that the content of the videotape met the requirements of SDCL 22-22-23, the crime to which he pleaded guilty. However, despite this concession, Blair reasons his conduct is less deserving of punishment, as his crime only caused his victims humiliation and invaded their privacy. It is important to note that Blair was not charged with window peeking under SDCL 22-21-3, or with a misdemeanor under SDCL 22-21-4 for taking pictures of someone in the nude without their consent. [18] These two crimes more aptly fit the description of a curious peeping tom that Blair attempts to give his conduct, and are considered invasion of privacy crimes. Instead, Blair was charged with a sex crime under SDCL 22-22-23 for filming a minor in a prohibited sexual act. [¶60.] It is not just the humiliation and invasion of the girls' privacy that SDCL 22-22-23 was targeted at preventing as suggested by Blair. The statute sought to protect children from those who photograph or film children engaged in prohibited sexual acts. That is, the statute sought to protect children from those who create child pornography in either still picture or moving film format. Whether the images of the children in question were limited to nudity, or extended to something as heinous as bestiality, the statute sought to protect children from predators who derive their sexual satisfaction from child pornography and those who seek to provide such predators with these images. [¶61.] The circuit court heavily focused its sentencing decision on the effects of Blair's crimes on the five young girls victimized. The letters from several of the victims indicate the significant psychological harm incurred by the victims. Each of the girls who wrote letters or statements to the circuit court focused on their respective disbelief that a parent could do such a thing to a child. Blair's daughter wrote that she is unable to understand why her father would treat her in such a manner, and how she is unable to trust people as a consequence. Other victims wrote similar statements, discussing how his acts were a violation of trust each of these girls had in Blair. One of the victims wrote that she at times wondered if she could trust her own father not to do something similar to her. [¶62.] We do not accept Blair's characterization of the victims' injuries as humiliation and invasion of privacy caused by learning of the existence of the videotape, or seeing still photographs made from the videotape. Nothing could be further from the true nature of the injuries inflicted upon these young girls, especially Blair's daughter. [19] These young girls were used and exploited as sex objects by a forty-two year old man. The State's disclosure of the existence of the videotape to the girls and showing some of them the still photos made from the videotape did not create the injury. The injury was inflicted by Blair's conduct at the time he surreptitiously filmed the girls and then used those images for his own sexual gratification. At that time, the children were victimized and the elements of the crime completed. [¶63.] Blair was prosecuted for a sex crime, not for humiliating these children, invading their privacy, or causing them to exhibit trust issues. The circuit court understood the distinction and was clearly focused on the injury to the victims as encompassing sexual exploitation when it compared the psychological injuries of a rape victim to the psychological injuries incurred by these young girls. [20] [¶64.] Furthermore, the circuit court was aware of the effects of Blair's crime on the community and on the victims as evidenced by its memorandum opinion issued after the first sentencing hearing and its opinion issued after conducting the gross disproportionality analysis on remand. The legislature has determined that a sex crime against a child is a serious concern and one which should be punished severely. State v. Guthmiller, 2003 SD 83, ¶48, 667 NW2d 295, 311 (reaffirming that the utmost deference should be given to the Legislature and the sentencing court in cases involving sex crimes against a child, in the context of criminal pedophilia). Given the circuit court's understanding of the increasing trend of sex crimes against children, and the escalation of conduct often depicted in these types of cases, the circuit court did not err when it placed greater focus on the penological theories of deterrence and incapacitation rather than on rehabilitation. [¶65.] In light of the egregious nature of the offense against at least five girls between the ages of eleven and fourteen, the repeated violations of SDCL 22-22-23 over an eighteen-month period, Blair's lack of remorse and candor about his own conduct, his attempts to shift the cause of the injury to the state's attorney, and the severe and long-lasting psychological injuries to his own child and the other child-victims, the sentences imposed were not grossly disproportionate to the crimes committed. Blair was sentenced to eight years for each of the five offenses charged. He was not sentenced to forty years for one felony. The fact that the sentences were imposed consecutively, while harsher than a concurrent sentence, does not make the sentences as a whole disproportionate. [¶66.] The record clearly establishes that in the minds of each of these five girls the crimes were individual and specific to each of them and the emotional and psychological damages sustained by each was unique and individual. The circuit court was well within its discretion to hold Blair separately accountable for the crimes committed against each of the five victims of his crimes by imposing consecutive sentences. The circuit court justly concluded that concurrent sentencing would not accomplish justice for each of the five children victimized by Blair. Separate crimes committed against separate victims justified separate, that is, consecutive sentencing. [¶67.] With the full record now before us we are able to discern the nature of Blair's character, his conduct, and its effect on the victims as determined by the circuit court. This is without a doubt the most serious violation of SDCL 22-22-23 in South Dakota, in that the videotape contained evidence of at least fifty separate violations against five different victims. The combination of the severity of the offense, the effects of the crime on the victims, and Blair's limited rehabilitation prospects justify a sentence at the harsher end of the spectrum. Based on the record as a whole, the five eight-year consecutive sentences, while harsh, do not appear grossly disproportionate and therefore do not violate the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Therefore, we decline to review the intra-jurisdictional analysis offered by Blair on appeal. [¶68.] Affirmed.