Huggins v. State
| Decision Date | 01 February 2022 |
| Docket Number | A21A1694 |
| Citation | 362 Ga.App. 450,868 S.E.2d 840 |
| Parties | HUGGINS v. The STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
Scott Chandler Huggins, for Appellant.
Penny Alane Penn, Sandra Ann Partridge, for Appellee.
Reese, Judge Following a bench trial, Frank Huggins was convicted of sexual assault of a student and sexual battery.1 On appeal, Huggins argues that: (1) the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction for sexual assault of a student, because he did not work at a "school" and was not a "teacher" under the 2016 version of OCGA § 16-6-5.1 ; and (2) trial counsel provided ineffective assistance by failing to file a demurrer to the indictment on those grounds. For the reasons set forth infra, we affirm.
Construing the evidence in favor of the trial judge's determination of the defendant's guilt,2 the record shows the following. In September 2016, Brandi Cammarata enrolled her 16-year-old daughter, L. S., for on-the-road driving lessons offered through Lanier Technical College. L. S. was a student at Flowery Branch High School and had already completed 30 hours of online driving classes. On September 8, 2016, L. S. received her driver's license in the morning, and was scheduled for her on-the-road driving lesson that afternoon. Even though L. S. had already obtained her license, Cammarata insisted L. S. have on-the-road lessons before driving on her own.
Cammarata and L. S. went to the Cumming campus of Lanier Technical College. Huggins arrived as L. S.’s driving instructor in a vehicle marked with Lanier Technical College's logo. Cammarata drove home while L. S. began her lesson with Huggins. The driving lesson vehicle was equipped with an in-car camera, which recorded the driving lesson with both sound and video. The video of the lesson was admitted into evidence, and the trial court watched the video in its entirety.
During the lesson, Huggins repeatedly touched L. S.’s upper thigh. After watching the video, L. S. counted 17 to 20 times where Huggins had touched her thigh. They drove to Huggins's house, and L. S. texted her mother and her boyfriend for help. L. S. was able to leave the car and spoke to Cammarata on the phone while in Huggins's driveway. L. S. cried when talking to her mother. After the call, she told Huggins that her mother was waiting for her back at the college, and the two drove back to the campus.
At trial, Timothy McDonald testified that he was an executive vice president at Lanier Technical College and oversaw the driving education program. Funding for the program was provided by Joshua's Law.3 Drivers must be between 15 and 18 to enroll in the college's driving class. The program consisted of thirty hours of classroom instruction and six hours of behind the wheel, and drivers could participate in either part of the program or both.
The college was required to go through training by the Governor's Office of Highway Safety to become an authorized training center. The college owned and maintained the vehicles used for the driving program. For the classroom portion of the program, while the college set the curriculum and final exam, the instructors had discretion in how they ran the class, including whether or not to give intermediate tests and quizzes. For the driving portion of the program, the college provided a list of maneuvers that a driver should be able to complete, and the instructor decided whether the driver met these criteria. The major duties for a driving instructor listed in the job description included "assess[ing] the student's skills, knowledge and/or abilities," "providing feedback to students and administration," "instruct[ing] students," "manag[ing] student behavior," and "prepar[ing] teach[ing] materials."
Joan Lee, the director of continuing education at Lanier Technical College, testified that she ran the driver's education course at the college. The instructors were employees of the college, had to go through a training certification to become a driving instructor, and had access to their students’ information in the college database. Lee testified that Huggins was one of the college's main instructors, teaching at least half of the classes. She referred to Huggins as the "lead instructor" and testified that he had helped train the other instructors at the college. Instructors followed the curriculum provided by the Governor's Office of Highway Safety, but they had discretion to add to the curriculum.
The trial court found Huggins guilty of sexual assault of a student and sexual battery. The trial court denied Huggins's motion for new trial, and this appeal followed.
"The interpretation of a statute is a question of law, which is reviewed de novo on appeal."4 "[U]nless clearly erroneous, this Court will uphold a trial court's factual determinations with respect to claims of ineffective assistance of counsel; however, a trial court's legal conclusions in this regard are reviewed de novo."5 With these guiding principles in mind, we now turn to Huggins's claims of error.
1. (a) Huggins argues that Lanier Technical College is not a "school" under the 2016 version of OCGA § 16-6-5.1, and thus the evidence at trial was insufficient to sustain his conviction for sexual assault of a student.
In 2016, OCGA § 16-6-5.1 provided:
"School" was defined under the statute as "any educational program or institution instructing children at any level, pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade, or the equivalent thereof if grade divisions are not used."7
Applying the definition of "school" under OCGA § 16-6-5.1 is an issue of first impression for this Court. Nevertheless, even under a strict construction of the statute, Lanier Technical College and its corresponding driver's education course met the definition of school under the 2016 version of OCGA § 16-6-5.1. Although L. S. attended a separate high school and was not enrolled at the college, the definition of school included "educational program[s],"9 which encompassed the driver's education course. The college's driver's education course was established pursuant to Joshua's Law, and one of the purposes set out by the General Assembly in passing the law was that "the state should assist in getting more young people into ... driver education and training programs."10 And, in approving the curricula for driver's education courses, the State ensures that the courses "educate young drivers about safe driving practices and the traffic laws of this state and ... train young drivers in the safe operation of motor vehicles."11 Finally, the 2016 version of OCGA § 16-6-5.1 ’s definition of school included that the institution or program provide education to children "at any level, pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade, or the equivalent thereof if grade divisions are not used."12 The college's driver's education course satisfied this requirement because the course was limited to drivers between the ages of 15 and 18.
For these reasons, the trial court did not err in finding that Lanier Technical College and its corresponding driver's education course met the definition of school under OCGA § 16-6-5.1 (2016).
(b) Huggins argues that he was not a "teacher" under OCGA § 16-6-5.1.
OCGA § 16-6-5.1 (2016) did not define "teacher" and only stated that the offense applied to "a teacher, principal, assistant principal, or other administrator of any school[.]"13 There are two cases in which our Court and the Supreme Court of Georgia have interpreted the term "teacher" as used in OCGA § 16-6-5.1 (2016). In those cases, the courts held that a paraprofessional and a daily substitute did not meet the definition of teacher under the statute.14
In State v. Morrow , the Supreme Court held that a paraprofessional was not a teacher under the statute, noting that "[t]he degree of specificity in the statutory identification of school administrators to whom the statute applies suggests that the statute does not use ‘teacher’ in a generic or unusually broad sense."15 The Court summarized the facts showing that the defendant was not a teacher under the statute:
The State acknowledges that Morrow did not do the sorts of things that teachers typically do. In particular, there is no evidence that Morrow assigned class work, homework or any other tasks, gave lectures, taught lessons, graded work, administered tests, attended faculty meetings, or reported to school on teacher workdays. Nor did Morrow devote any meaningful portion of his time to the instruction of students. At most, the evidence shows that Morrow occasionally answered questions posed by students with special needs or students with limited proficiency in English, questions that could have been answered by almost any layperson. [Moreover,] it is undisputed that Morrow had no teaching certificate.16
In State v. Rich , in which we held that a daily substitute was not a teacher under the statute, we looked to the dictionary definition of teacher to help inform our analysis.17 We defined...
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Lawson v. State
...384, 385 (2), 782 S.E.2d 245 (2016).27 Sowell v. State , 327 Ga. App. 532, 539 (4), 759 S.E.2d 602 (2014) ; accord Huggins v. State , 362 Ga. App. 450, 868 S.E.2d 840 (2022) ; see Grant v. State , 295 Ga. 126, 130 (5), 757 S.E.2d 831 (2014) (holding that "[i]n reviewing a claim of ineffecti......
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