Chapman v. State, 68090
| Decision Date | 02 May 1984 |
| Docket Number | No. 68090,68090 |
| Citation | 318 S.E.2d 213,170 Ga.App. 779 |
| Parties | CHAPMAN v. The STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
Lawson E. Thompson, Washington, for appellant.
Kenneth E. Goolsby, Dist. Atty., Harold W. Wallace III, Dennis C. Sanders, Asst. Dist. Attys., for appellee.
Frank Chapman, Jr. was convicted of burglary and child molestation. He was sentenced to serve ten years for child molestation and five years for burglary, to be served concurrently. Chapman brings this appeal enumerating five alleged errors. Held:
1. Enumerations 1 and 5 deal with the sufficiency of the evidence. As pertinent to this appeal, the evidence shows that the Pender family were asleep in their home at about 1:00 a.m. on June 8, 1982. Mrs. Pender was asleep in one room, her three small sons were asleep in another bedroom, and her 10-year-old daughter was asleep in a third bedroom. Mrs. Pender was awakened by frightened calls from her daughter. Mrs. Pender ran to the bedroom door but found it locked from the inside. She pounded on the door, demanding entry exclaiming that she believed someone was present in the room besides her daughter. Ultimately the door was unlocked from within and a male, whom Mrs. Pender identified as being the appellant, ran from the room. The appellant ran from the room through the kitchen and made his escape. Mrs. Pender testified she went back to her daughter's room and found her daughter crying and her pajama top was "off." The daughter testified that she awoke to find a man standing over her (whom she identified as the appellant) and the man had his hand over her mouth. She testified that her pajama top was pulled "down" or "up," that it was not as it had been when she went to bed. Appellant confessed to the burglary by admitting that he entered the Pender house to get some food from the refrigerator. He explicitly denied however going beyond the kitchen or ever being in the child's room or touching the child in any way.
Appellant raises an issue concerning the sufficiency of evidence to support a charge of child molestation where the evidence shows a non-related adult male entered a ten-year-old female child's room at 1:00 a.m., locked the door, put his hand over her mouth, and removed (or at least moved) the child's pajama top.
OCGA § 16-6-4 defines child molestation as the doing of an immoral or indecent act with or in the presence of a child under the age of 14 with the intent to arouse or satisfy sexual desires. Webster's Third New International Dictionary (Unabridged), 1976, at p. 1130 defines "immoral" as "... inconsistent with purity or good morals; contrary to conscience or moral law." Black's Law Dictionary, Revised Fourth Edition, 1968, at p. 885, defines "immoral" as "... inimical to public welfare according to the standards of a given community, as expressed in law or otherwise."
Webster at p. 1147 defines "indecent" as "... not conforming to generally accepted standards of morality; tending toward or being in fact something generally viewed as morally indelicate or improper or offensive." Black's at p. 909, defines "indecent" as "... offensive to common propriety; offending against modesty or delicacy...."
We perceive the law against child molestation to proscribe acts which offend against the public's sense of propriety as well as to afford protection to a child's body in those cases where the act or acts are more suggestive of sexually oriented misconduct than simply assaultive in nature. On a similar basis, the distinguishable offenses of simple assault, child abuse and child molestation are distinguishable.
The intent to commit the act charged was a jury question. In this case the jury was faced with evidence showing an illegal entry into a child's bedroom in the early morning hours, locking the bedroom door, and, as the jury was authorized to conclude, either moving or removing a part of the child's night clothing, and forcibly restraining her.
The jury was charged the law of the case and heard all the evidence. It had to decide if the conduct of the defendant was or was not immoral or indecent. Weighing the evidence and assigning the truth is best done by a jury of the vicinage. What that jury establishes by its verdict from an evaluation of the whole and determines to be the truth of the matter in controversy ought to be accepted. Thornton v. State, 161 Ga.App. 296, 301, 287 S.E.2d 749 (Deen, P.J., concurring specially). We find ample support for a finding that the conduct manifested by appellant was contrary to conscience, or moral law, and was inimical to public welfare according to the standards of society as perceived by the jury, and that the conduct did not conform to generally accepted standards of morality indeed tended toward or was an act generally viewed as morally and sexually indelicate, improper and offensive. We conclude therefore that any rational trier of fact could have found guilt of child molestation under these facts beyond a reasonable doubt. Baldwin v....
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