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123 Ala. 12

Pallis v. State

Supreme Court of Alabama

Decided November 15, 1898

Supreme Court of Alabama · decided 1898-11-15

Tried before the Hon. J. W. Foster. The appellant in this case was indicted, tried and convicted for an assault upon her child, with intent to murder it, and sentenced to the penitentiary for three years.

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““If the exposure or neglect of an infant or other dependent person, resulting in death, is an act of mere carelessness, wherein danger to life does not clearly appear, the homicide is only manslaughter; whereas, if the exposure or neglect is of a dangerous kind, it is murder. For example, if from an infant of tender years the person under obligation to provide for it willfully withholds needful food or any other needful thing, though not with intent to kill, and by reason thereof the child dies, he commits murder.””

quoted by 1 later decision, including 88 Md. App. 607 - Simpkins v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1898-11-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 17 later decisions — most recently February 1995

1 federal appellate · 16 state decisions — followed in 12 states

4018981900191019201930194019501960197019801990decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

HARALSON, J.

¶1It seems to be well settled, that where a parent having charge of an infant of tender' years, abandons and exposes it to the inclemency of the weather, such parent is guilty of an assault. If physical detriment ensue from such exposure, it is a battery on the child. — Russell on Crimes, p. 1021, § 1022; 2 Bish. New Crim. Law, § § 29, 33 (2), 72 (3), 660 (1).

¶2“If the exposure or neglect of an infant or other dependent person, resulting in death, is an act of mere carelessness, wherein danger to life does not clearly appear, the homicide is only manslaughter; whereas, if the exposure or neglect is of a dangerous kind, it is murder. For example, if from an infant of tender years the person under obligation to provide for it willfully withholds needful food or any other needful thing, though not with intent to kill, and by reason thereof the child dies, he commits murder.” — 2 Bish. New Cr. Law, § 686.

¶3The charge of the court was in consonance with the foregoing principles, and in its postulates was well within the evidence in the cause.

¶4Affirmed.

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