Espey v. State, 80-254
| Decision Date | 14 December 1981 |
| Docket Number | No. 80-254,80-254 |
| Parties | Herbert ESPEY, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Richard L. Jorandby, Public Defender, and Tatjana Ostapoff, Asst. Public Defender, West Palm Beach, for appellant.
Jim Smith, Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, and Joy B. Shearer, Asst. Atty. Gen., West Palm Beach, for appellee.
This appeal results from a conviction for sexual battery upon a seven year old granddaughter, the accused claiming that the admission of evidence as to his proclivity for coerced oral, anal and vaginal intercourse, use of pornographic materials, bestiality and lesbianism either with, or among, his five other children and housepet, was erroneous. We affirm.
The sole issue is whether evidence of these collateral crimes was admissible under the so called "Williams Rule," see Williams v. State, 110 So.2d 654 (Fla. 1959), cert. den. 361 U.S. 847, 80 S.Ct. 102, 4 L.Ed.2d 86 (1959). The law laid down in Williams predicates the admission of the evidence on whether it has legal relevance, i.e. whether it tends to prove any of the issues properly before the trial court. Id. at 660.
We begin by recapitulating some of the facts of the controlling Williams case in which the victim parked her car during the evening at a shopping plaza and returned to discover a man hiding in the back seat who later claimed he thought it was his brother's car in which he wanted to take a nap. Also admitted in evidence was the testimony of another crime victim who testified that she also had parked her car in the same parking lot at the same hour some six weeks earlier and had returned to find the same defendant hiding in the back seat, resulting in the same explanation of napping in an automobile which he thought belonged to his brother. Based on this similarity of events, our Supreme Court held in part:
(G)enerally it is harmful to admit evidence of collateral crimes "independent of an unconnected with" the crime charged. The decision then announces that "to this general rule" there are several distinct exceptions, among which are evidence which is a part of the res gestae or tends to establish identity, or when necessary to an intelligent account of the crime.... These exceptions include any evidence that will tend to prove criminal intent, guilty knowledge, purpose, plan or design or such as would tend to show that the act charged was not the result of accident, mistake or inadvertence or was aimed to prevent the defense otherwise opened to the accused. Id. at 661.
Although it is the law of this State, we will be the first to concede that the Williams rule has often been stretched too far and that even Williams itself is somewhat amorphous. After all, it is a standard police warning that people should look on the floor of the back seat of their cars before entering and it is a frequent explanation by an intruder that he mistook the vehicle for another. Nonetheless we find several aspects of this case which make the disputed testimony relevant to intent and a common scheme or plan, as laid down in Williams.
These collateral crimes mostly began with beguiling affection, fondling, viewing of pornographic materials and home nude photography followed by the actual sexual batteries, all committed under the same roof exclusively with his own children and grandchildren, both male and female. These ghastly sessions were always concluded with threats of knifings and beatings if ever the children revealed the goings-on. The attacks on each child were...
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