People v. Stofle

Opinion

SMITH, J.

Michael Ray Stofle was charged by information with two counts of lewd and lascivious conduct with a child under the age of fourteen (Pen. Code, § 288, subd. (a))

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and two counts of annoying or molesting a child under eighteen (§ 647.6), with allegations of two 1989 lewd act convictions (§ 288, subd. (a)) as prior “strikes” under the legislative version of three strikes (§ 667, subds. (b)-(i)). A jury found him guilty of one lewd act and one molest count, each regarding two-year-old Sara K. (counts III and IV), but deadlocked as to the two other counts, regarding eight-year-old Shawnte A. (counts I and II). In bifurcated trial to the court, the priors were found true (§§ 667, subds. (a), (d) and (e), 667.51, subd. (a)). Stofle appeals following his sentence to two concurrent terms of twenty-five years to life.

All four counts concerned events of May 6, 1994, when Stofle attended a day-long party and gathering of relatives at a cousin’s cabin. Present were a couple, Jeff (Stofle’s cousin) and Dee Dee, and their four children—Sara and Shawnte included. All were to spend the night there, and the children and some adults were sleeping on the cabin floor. Sometime after 9 p.m., Jeff and Dee Dee got into an argument. Jeff walked out, and Dee Dee went out to look for him. Stofle helped look briefly but then went back to the cabin.

When Jeff and Dee Dee later returned together to the cabin, they found everyone inside apparently asleep and Stofle lying on the floor next to two-year-old Sara. Dee Dee had dressed Sara in a nightgown and panties and zipped up her “Barney” sleeping bag all the way, but Stofle’s blanket now covered them both. Jeff, concerned because he heard that Stofle had molested a young girl in the past, had Dee Dee go and check on Sara. She did and, when she pulled the blanket back, saw that Sara’s sleeping bag was unzipped all the way, her panties were pulled down to midthigh and her buttocks were exposed. When she reached down to pick Sara up, her right hand felt Stofle’s erect penis next to the child’s buttocks, and Dee Dee saw

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that his jeans fly was opened. She “freaked,” picked Sara up quickly, ran into the bedroom and told Jeff.