Opinion ID: 1202601
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: nature of the act

Text: It is clear that in cases where there are multiple penetrations the victim's different orifices, whether of mouth, vagina, or anus, a separate conviction is valid for each penetration. As the Oregon Court of Appeals held in State v. Steele, 33 Or.App. 491, 499, 577 P.2d 524, 528 (1978), review denied 285 Or. 195 (1979) (quoted in Harrell v. State, 88 Wis.2d 546, 567-568, 277 N.W.2d 462, 470-471 (Wis.Ct.App.1979)): We do not believe that the convictions for oral and anal sodomy in the first degree merge as constituting but one crime. The victim was exposed to additional fear, humiliation and danger during the second sodomy. We see no reason why we should hold that a man who commits one sodomy may do so again and again to the same victim with impunity. [Citations omitted.] We agree with that reasoning and have previously made the same holding: Where a defendant commits separate acts of our statutorily defined term sexual intercourse in different ways, each act may be prosecuted and punished as a separate offense. Syl. pt. 2, State v. Carter, 168 W.Va. 90, 282 S.E.2d 277 (1981). Accord, Johnson v. State, 762 P.2d 493, 495 (Alaska App.1988) (Separate convictions for multiple acts of penetration involving different openings of the victim's or the defendant's body are permissible); People v. Johnson, 406 Mich. 320, 279 N.W.2d 534 (1979). However, a close examination of the act in this case shows us that the analysis used in the penetration cases (such as Reed and Carter ) does not fit. Appellant committed one grope in which he made contact with victim's breast and sex organ, but he did not repeatedly choose to violate the victim's body at different identifiable times. Indeed, first-degree sexual abuse is an aggravated form of battery that has heightened penalties due to the sexual overlay. This case is more akin to battery cases than to penetration cases. See People v. Berner, 42 Colo.App. 520, 522, 600 P.2d 112, 113 (1979) (holding that two blows struck in a ten minute fight were not separate transactions but were part of a single criminal transaction arising from a single impulse); People v. Wilson, 93 Ill.App.3d 395, 397, 48 Ill.Dec. 744, 417 N.E.2d 146, 147 (1981) (finding inane the argument that each blow constituted a separate crime of aggravated battery and attempted murder). Accord, Weatherly v. State, 733 P.2d 1331, 1336-1337 (Okla.Crim.App.1987). The double jeopardy limitations on multiple battery convictions is clear: Each blow by a single defendant upon a single victim in one contemporaneous transaction cannot serve as a basis for multiple convictions for battery. When examining the nature of the act hereone grope that was over in a few secondsthe appellant's conduct is much closer to battery than penetration. Accordingly, the unitary nature of the appellant's act militates against multiple convictions of first-degree sexual abuse. Although the nature of the act is perhaps the strongest factor for determining unitary conduct, this factor is not necessarily dispositive and, therefore, I examine the next most important factors, time and place. 2.