5D03-1114 Jason Williams v. State

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State: Florida

Court: Florida Fifth District Court

Docket No: 5D03-1114

Case Date: 01/31/2005

Preview:IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF FLORIDA FIFTH DISTRICT JANUARY TERM 2005

JASON NOVELLE WILLIAMS, Appellant, v. STATE OF FLORIDA, Appellee. ________________________________/ Opinion filed February 4, 2005. Appeal from the Circuit Court for Volusia County, Joseph G. Will, Judge. Michael H. LaFay of NeJame, Harrington & Barker, Quintana, Tumarkin, LaFay & Byron, P.A., Orlando, for Appellant. Charles J. Crist, Jr., Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Bonnie Jean Parrish, Assistant Attorney General, Daytona Beach, for Appellee. Case No. 5D03-1114

THOMPSON, J. Jason Novelle Williams appeals his conviction for lewd and lascivious battery on a person 12 years of age or older but less than 16 years of age. We affirm because any error was not preserved. Williams, age 24 at the time of the alleged offense, was accused of having intercourse with a fourteen-year-old girl after picking her up at the middle school she

attended. She testified that she became acquainted with him at the store at which he worked and had visited him there on occasion. On one occasion, she testified, he gave her the number for a cell phone he was going to be using, and she called him the next day from her middle school, asking him to pick her up. Her step-mother happened to call the school that day and then went to the school, where she spoke to the school resource officer and three other students. In the meantime, having allegedly had

intercourse with her, Williams dropped her off, as she directed, at the home of a friend of hers. The victim and her friend left with another friend, and when they arrived at one location, she was met by deputies who took her home. Fearing that she might have used drugs, her parents took her to a hospital, where she eventually told her aunt that she had intercourse with Williams and where an inconclusive rape kit was utilized. She initially denied to her parents that she had intercourse, but later stated she had intercourse with a person she had met named, "Josh," and then subsequently said she had intercourse with Williams. Later, at his workplace, Williams agreed to speak with a detective. They spoke in the detective's car, where the detective secretly recorded the conversation. After

Williams denied having sex with the victim, the detective told Williams two falsehoods: that the victim had changed her story and was currently claiming that she had been forcibly raped and that the detective had forensic evidence of a sexual encounter between the victim and Williams. The detective told Williams he believed it was a consensual encounter, that the ball was in Williams's court, and that the detective could "go" with what he had: UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yes. Now I know there's three sides to every story. This isn't my first day on the job. -2-

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Inaudible). UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: There's your side. There's her side. And somewhere in the middle lies the truth. Okay. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Okay. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I want to know what your side of the story is. And I don't want to hear we didn't have sex because I know you did. Okay. I know you had sex. Okay. Just as sure as I'm sitting here. And I got enough forensic evidence to back that up. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Uh-huh. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: So I want to know, did you force yourself on her, or was it a consensual deal. I want to know if she called you up from school to meet with you to have sex. Now the ball is in your court, man. It's up to you. I can go with what I have right now

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