Background
Evin A. Figueroa Hernandez was charged with six offenses arising from sexual contact with his girlfriend’s twelve-year-old daughter. The charges included sexual activity with a child by a person in familial or custodial authority, three counts of lewd and lascivious molestation based on touching the victim’s breasts, buttocks, and vagina, and two counts of lewd and lascivious conduct. A jury convicted him on all counts. He received concurrent sentences, the longest consisting of twenty-five years in prison followed by twenty years of probation, and was designated a sexual predator.
The prosecution presented testimony from the victim and others to whom she reported the incident, as well as DNA evidence derived from swabs collected during a medical examination. A Miami-Dade crime-lab analyst testified that a mixed DNA profile contained a foreign male profile matching Figueroa Hernandez. His defense expert challenged the lab’s manual interpretation method as outdated and insufficiently reliable for mixed, low-level DNA samples. After trial, Figueroa Hernandez also sought relief under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850, arguing that multiple convictions violated double jeopardy. The Third District consolidated his direct appeal and his appeal from the summary denial of postconviction relief.
The Court’s Holding
The Third District affirmed the convictions. It held that the trial court acted within its discretion under Daubert in admitting the State’s DNA evidence. The analyst described an accredited, standardized, generally accepted, and peer-reviewed methodology. Although newer genotyping software might better interpret mixed samples, the defense’s criticism concerned the evidence’s weight rather than its admissibility and was properly explored through cross-examination. The court also upheld the use of the term “presumptive saliva test,” concluding that the explanation of the test as a preliminary step made the terminology unlikely to mislead or prejudice the jury.
The court likewise affirmed the denial of the Rule 3.850 motion. The three molestation counts did not punish the same offense multiple times because each involved a separate touching of a different body part. Under Florida precedent, a new criminal act began when one touching ended and another began, even if the acts occurred in close succession. Figueroa Hernandez therefore was not subjected to double jeopardy. The court also found no abuse of discretion in the eleven other challenged procedural rulings.
The court declined to decide in the first instance whether Smith v. Arizona required reversal on Confrontation Clause grounds. Its decision was without prejudice to Figueroa Hernandez timely raising that issue in an appropriate postconviction motion.
Key Takeaways
- Challenges asserting that a crime laboratory should have used newer DNA-analysis software may affect the weight of the evidence without making an otherwise reliable, generally accepted methodology inadmissible under Daubert.
- Separate sexual touchings may support multiple molestation convictions without violating double jeopardy, even when they occur close together during one episode.
- An appellate court may leave a newly raised Confrontation Clause theory for an appropriate postconviction proceeding rather than decide it in the first instance.
Why It Matters
The decision reinforces trial courts’ discretion to admit DNA testimony based on established manual interpretation methods when the State demonstrates testing standards, scientific acceptance, accreditation, and peer review. Disputes over whether newer software would produce a more reliable interpretation ordinarily remain subjects for competing experts and cross-examination.
For double-jeopardy analysis in Florida sex-offense cases, the opinion also underscores that closely timed touchings can constitute distinct criminal acts when each results from a successive impulse. Prosecutors may therefore charge separate counts for discrete touchings during the same encounter, provided the record supports treating them as separate acts.