Opinion ID: 1819622
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: the issue in context

Text: Now, because of the majority's unnecessary and unfortunate decision, Florida courts and law enforcement are left with a vague restriction on a sex offender's access to sexually stimulating material. This absurdity is illustrated by the facts of the case before us. Dr. Kasischke was put on community control for lewd and lascivious assaults on a child under sixteen years of age. As stated by the Third District: The defendant, who has a Ph.D. degree, was fifty-four years old at the time of the underlying offense. He was convicted of three counts of lewd and lascivious assault on a child under sixteen years of age. Specifically, the defendant solicited a fifteen year-old boy and offered him forty dollars so that he could perform oral sex on the boy. The defendant took the boy to a park where, behind the bushes, he unzipped the boy's pants and performed oral sex on the victim until the boy ejaculated in the defendant's mouth. Additionally, the defendant masturbated in the boy's presence. Kasischke v. State, 946 So.2d 1155, 1156 (Fla. 3d DCA 2006). Dr. Kasischke agreed to plead guilty. His plea agreement included section 948.03(5)(a)(7) as a standard condition of his two years of community control and eight years of probation that would follow his 364 days in jail. Dr. Kasischke violated his community control by possessing pornographic and obscene materials. Specifically, [w]hile the defendant was under community control, officers executed a search of his home and found several photographs of nude young males and of males performing various sexual acts. Also recovered was a videotape in a kitchen drawer that was kept apart from other videotapes that the defendant kept near his television. The parties do not dispute that the videotape shows pornographic and obscene images. Among other things, the videotape depicts a young-looking male engaging in oral and anal sex with other males. Id. As the Third District noted, Dr. Kasischke does not dispute that the video he possessed was pornographic and obscene and that the video showed a young male having oral and anal sex with other males. Instead, Dr. Kasischke disputes whether his possession of this videotape violated section 948.03(5)(a)(7). As the Third District succinctly stated his argument: Defendant argues that the phrase relevant to the offender's deviant behavior pattern should modify all aspects of the community control condition and, as such, only prohibits defendant from viewing or possessing material which is specifically related to his prior deviant acts. Under this view, the community control condition would be strictly limited to obscene and pornographic material that depicts fellatio or masturbation with an underage boy, similar to defendant's previous victim. Thus, the defendant contends that, since the defendant was convicted of a sexual offense on a minor under sixteen years of age, the State must prove that the pornographic material involved a minor under sixteen for a community control violation to be found. Id. at 1157. The majority agrees with Dr. Kasischke that section 948.03(5)(a)(7) only prohibits a community supervised sex offender from viewing or possessing obscene, pornographic, or sexually stimulating material that is relevant to his deviant behavior pattern. [35] In other words, to prove that Dr. Kasischke violated his community control condition imposed under section 948.03(5)(a)(7), the State has to establish that the pornographic material he possessed was relevant to his deviant behavior pattern. What does this mean in practical terms? Does the State now have to establish the existence of a particular deviant behavior pattern for each supervised sex offender? Would the crimes Dr. Kasischke committed on one adolescent male be sufficient to establish such a pattern? If so, does the State, as Dr. Kasischke argues, also have to prove his material is related to the specific acts he committed? In other words, does the State have to prove that this material depicted fellatio or masturbation by an adult male with a fifteen-year-old boy? Unfortunately, the majority leaves this new relevancy question open for determination not only in this case, but in untold thousands of other cases involving community supervised sex offenders across this state. As I have shown, disrupting the effective supervision of sex offenders and creating such uncertainty is unnecessary. The statute is intended to prohibit offenders like Dr. Kasischke from possessing any pornography. [36] And if Dr. Kasischke's use of any telephone, electronic media, or computer programs or services is relevant to his deviant behavior pattern, as of 1997, section 948.03(5)(a)(7) prohibits any such usage.