Stofle

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)) 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.,…