COURT OF APPEALS DECISION DATED AND FILED January 8, 2008
David R. Schanker Clerk of Court of Appeals |
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NOTICE |
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This opinion is subject to further editing. If published, the official version will appear in the bound volume of the Official Reports. A party may file with the Supreme Court a petition to review an adverse decision by the Court of Appeals. See Wis. Stat. § 808.10 and Rule 809.62. |
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Appeal No. |
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STATE OF WISCONSIN |
IN COURT OF APPEALS |
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DISTRICT III |
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State of
Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Mitchell King,
Defendant-Appellant. |
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APPEAL
from a judgment and an order of the circuit court for
Before
¶1 PER CURIAM. Mitchell King, a former school teacher and coach, appeals a judgment convicting him of three counts of sexually assaulting a fifteen-year-old student, Natalie A. B. He also appeals an order denying his motion for resentencing. He argues that the State misrepresented the nature of King’s relationship with Natalie and the court relied on that misinformation; the court improperly enhanced the sentence based on general deterrence rather than King’s own culpability; and King established new factors justifying a sentence reduction.[1] We reject these arguments and affirm the judgment and order.
¶2 King was charged with five counts of second-degree sexual
assault of a child, four counts of child enticement and one count of exposing a
child to harmful material. Pursuant to a
plea agreement, King pled guilty to three counts of second-degree sexual
assault of a child. The remaining
counts, as well as three other felony counts from
¶3 The State’s portrayal of King as “delusional” in believing
that his relationship with Natalie was mutually consensual and the court’s
acceptance of that characterization provide no basis for relief. Neither the State nor the court used the term
“delusional” in a clinical or psychiatric sense. Rather, the word conveys their assessment
that King exhibited a distorted view of the propriety of his sexual
relationship with the child. King
attempted to portray the child as an equal who pursued a sexual relationship
with him. Because a child under the age
of sixteen is not competent to consent to sexual contact or intercourse, the
law protects children from others and from themselves.
¶4 The sentencing court properly considered general deterrence
among the factors that support the twenty-year sentence. Sentencing courts are required to consider
the rights and interests of the public.
¶5 King has not established any new factor that would warrant
sentence modification. A new factor is a
fact highly relevant to the imposition of sentence, but not known to the
sentencing court at the time of the original sentence either because it was not
then in existence or because it was unknowingly overlooked by all of the
parties.
¶6 Likewise, the sentencing commission’s statistics do not constitute a new factor. Knowledge that the sentence imposed is in the higher range of sentences imposed for Class C felonies does not account for the variety of crimes in that class, the twenty-five-year age gap in this case, King’s abuse of his authority as a teacher and coach and the numerous read-in offenses. The statistics do not frustrate the purpose of the original sentence.
By the Court.—Judgment and order affirmed.
This opinion will not be published. See Wis. Stat. Rule 809.23(1)(b)5.
[1] King abandoned other issues raised in his postconviction motion by not pursuing them on appeal and, in his reply brief, withdraws arguments relating to the sentencing guidelines in light of State v. Grady, 2007 WI 81, 302 Wis. 2d 80, 734 N.W.2d 364.