{"id":764,"date":"2021-09-20T13:41:31","date_gmt":"2021-09-20T17:41:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tampacriminallawyer.net\/?p=764"},"modified":"2026-01-09T03:04:43","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T08:04:43","slug":"florida-court-issues-ruling-on-lesser-included-offenses-of-sexual-battery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/florida-court-issues-ruling-on-lesser-included-offenses-of-sexual-battery\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Court Issues Ruling on Lesser Included Offenses of Sexual Battery"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In 2018, the Florida Supreme Court promulgated a schedule of lesser included offenses. Recently, the court answered the certified question of whether it erred in classifying sexual battery as a necessarily lesser include offense of capital sexual battery, ultimately determining that it did. The court set forth its conclusion in an opinion issued in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.floridasupremecourt.org\/content\/download\/781340\/opinion\/sc20-1053_CORRECTED.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Florida case<\/a> in which the defendant was convicted of both capital sexual battery and sexual battery. If you are accused of a sex crime, it is advisable to meet with a Tampa sex crime defense lawyer to assess what defenses you may be able to assert in pursuit of a favorable outcome.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Procedural Background of the Case<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>It is reported that the defendant was charged with one count of lewd exhibition and three counts of sexual battery, arising out of elicit contact he had with his ex-girlfriend\u2019s daughter when the daughter was between nine and fifteen years old. The victim testified at trial, reporting the acts occurred on over twenty different occasions, but three stood out in particular: once when she was 9, once when she was 11, and once when she was 13.<\/p>\n<p>Allegedly, after the evidence was introduced at trial, the defendant requested that the court instruct the jury on the sexual battery as a necessarily lesser included offense of capital sexual battery. At that time, the schedule of lesser included offenses did, in fact, list sexual battery as a necessarily lesser included offense of sexual battery. The State objected to the instruction, arguing it was illogical. The court agreed and denied the request. The defendant was convicted, and he appealed. The appellate court affirmed the trial court ruling and certified the question to the Florida Supreme Court.  <a href=\"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/florida-court-issues-ruling-on-lesser-included-offenses-of-sexual-battery\/#more-764\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading \u203a<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 2018, the Florida Supreme Court promulgated a schedule of lesser included offenses. Recently, the court answered the certified question of whether it erred in classifying sexual battery as a necessarily lesser include offense of capital sexual battery, ultimately determining that it did. The court set forth its conclusion in an opinion issued in a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1744,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sex-crimes"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Sexual Battery: Lesser Included Offenses in FL<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Learn how Florida courts handle lesser included offenses in sexual battery cases and why it can change the verdict options.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/florida-court-issues-ruling-on-lesser-included-offenses-of-sexual-battery\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Sexual Battery: Lesser Included Offenses in FL\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Learn how Florida courts handle lesser included offenses in sexual battery cases and why it can change the verdict options.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/florida-court-lesser-included-sexual-battery.webp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Hanlon Law, PA\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Sexual Battery: Lesser Included Offenses in 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minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/florida-court-issues-ruling-on-lesser-included-offenses-of-sexual-battery\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/florida-court-issues-ruling-on-lesser-included-offenses-of-sexual-battery\/"},"author":{"name":"Hanlon Law, PA","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/8b1bbe17dcab105246cd4cb867e91837"},"headline":"Florida Court Issues Ruling on Lesser Included Offenses of Sexual 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