Carson v. United States

¶1On June 4, 1985, Janet Carson arrived home from work at about 3:45 p.m. and was informed by one of her children that a fuse needed replacement. While looking for a fuse, appellant noticed that eight dollars were missing from her dresser drawer. She called her children — thirteen-year-old Cornell, six-year-old Everett, five-year-old Angelica and eight-year-old Charmaine Schmidt — to her bedroom; each child denied knowing anything about the missing money. At that point she went downstairs, and as she returned upstairs, she picked up an electrical cord; she later testified that she routinely used the cord to discipline the children. She again asked the children about the missing money, and they again denied any knowledge of the money’s disappearance. Appellant then whipped each of the children several times.

¶2The next day, at the school attended by Everett, Angelica, and Charmaine, school officials noticed marks and bruises on the children. Detective Harmon of the Metropolitan Police Department went to the school and took the three children to Children’s Hospital. Everett’s abrasions were cleansed and bandaged; the other two children received no treatment.

¶3Appellant was subsequently charged with three counts of cruelty to children (one count of cruelty to Everett Carson, one count of cruelty to Angelica Carson and one count of cruelty to Charmaine Schmidt) in violation of D.C.Code § 22-901 (1981). She waived her right to a jury trial, and after a trial before the court, she was found guilty on two counts (cruelty to Everett and cruelty to Angelica). Appellant was sentenced to thirty days’ imprisonment on each count, the sentences to run consecutively and suspended in favor of one year of unsupervised probation. On appeal, Carson claims that the evidence was insufficient to support her conviction. We affirm.

¶4I.

¶5Before considering appellant’s claim that the evidence was insufficient to support her conviction, we must first determine the mens rea required for conviction *1078under D.C.Code § 22-901.1 We conclude that the offense is a general intent crime, which also requires a showing of malice. We reach this conclusion for three reasons. First, the statute has been interpreted as requiring an “evil mind,” and in other contexts “evil mind” is equated with general intent and malice. Second, this interpretation gains support from Maryland’s interpretation of its similar common law based statute. Finally, this interpretation advances the essential purpose of the statute.

¶6Judicial interpretation of D.C.Code § 22-901 has been limited. In Mullen v. United States, 105 U.S. App.D.C. 25, 263 F.2d 275 (1959), the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held that the terms “abuse” and “wil-fully mistreat” as used in the statute “call[ ] for something worse than good intentions coupled with bad judgment,” and incorporate “the requirement of an evil state of mind....” Id. at 26, 263 F.2d at 276. Some years later, in United States v. Thomas, 148 U.S. App.D.C. 148, 459 F.2d 1172 (1972), the court held that willfulness in its “evil or bad-purpose aspect” or in its “evil mind connotation” was an essential element of the offense. Id. at 153, 459 F.2d at 1177. The cases would seem to teach that cruelty to children is something more than a general intent crime and something less than a specific intent crime. There are no other cases interpreting D.C. Code § 22-901.2

¶7In other contexts, this court has equated the terms “evil intent” and “malice.” See, e.g., United States v. Bradford, 344 A.2d 208 (D.C.1975) (manslaughter requires malice or “evil design”). This court has noted that a showing of bad or evil purpose is “necessary to distinguish the mental state required for malice-based offenses from that involved in crimes the conviction for which demands proof of no more than general intent or criminal negligence.” Charles v. United States, 371 A.2d 404, 411 (D.C.1977). Thus, if cruelty to children requires proof of something more than a general intent, that something more would seem to be malice.

¶8Our conclusion is further supported by the statute’s common law roots. D.C. Code § 22-901 is a codification of the common law crime of assault on children, Beausoliel v. United States, 71 App.D.C. 111, 115, 107 F.2d 292, 296 (1939), and absent a statutory definition of an element of a crime, the common law definition controls. The common law of the District of Columbia is rooted in the common law of Maryland as it existed in 1801. See D.C. Code § 49-301 (1981). The current Mary*1079land cruelty to children statute is a codification of Maryland common law and it defines abuse as “cruel or inhumane treatment or [the] result of [a] malicious act or acts.” See Md.Code Ann. [Crimes & Punishment] § 35A (1987). Since the two statutes stem from the same common law roots, the malice standard in the Maryland statute lends support to our interpretation.

¶9Finally, our interpretation gives effect to the policy concerns of the statute. In only rare instances will a parent have the specific intent to assault or abuse a child. A general intent standard would too greatly invade the legitimate domestic authority of parents. A general intent standard with the additional showing of malice, however, offers children the protection the statute envisioned while at the same time not undermining the domestic authority of parents.

¶10II.

¶11Having determined the mens rea required for conviction of cruelty to children, we must now determine whether the government's proof was sufficient to establish the requisite mens rea in this case. Appellant concedes that the record supports the trial court’s finding of general intent. However, she argues that the government failed to prove that she acted with malice. She argues that according to her undisputed testimony, she was motivated not by an evil intent, but rather by “a concern for [her] children’s welfare and upbringing.” At first blush, the record supports her argument as to motivation.

¶12The government argues, however, that to find malice “all that is required is a conscious disregard of a known and substantial risk of the harm which the statute is intended to prevent.” Charles, supra,371 A.2d at 411. Quoting the trial court’s findings, the government argues that the evidence witnesses “a reckless disregard of the well-being of these two very young children” and that appellant acted in a manner “which is inevitably going to cause what did happen here, which is impermissible types of injuries.”

¶13Malice is a rather slippery concept, not amenable to precise definition. Authors of the Model Penal Code chose not to use the term. Perkins and Boyce in their treatise on criminal law explain that “malice in the legal sense imports (1) the absence of all elements of justification, excuse or recognized mitigation, and (2) the presence of either (a) an actual intent to cause the particular harm which is produced or harm of the same general nature, or (b) the wanton and wilful doing of an act with awareness of a plain and strong likelihood that such harm may result.” PERKINS & Boyce, CRIMINAL Law at 860 (3d ed. 1982). What does this mean in the context of cruelty to children? Simply put, we believe that a parent acts with malice when a parent acts out of a desire to inflict pain rather than out of genuine effort to correct the child, or when the parent, in a genuine effort to correct the child, acts with a conscious disregard that serious harm will result.

¶14Obviously our definition stresses the mental state of the parent. A parent acts maliciously if the parent acts out of a desire to inflict pain. A parent might also possess the requisite malice, however, even if the parent acted out of a genuine effort to correct the child but chose impermissible means to do so. If a parent chose to discipline, for example, by striking the child with a steel pipe, the parent would be acting with a “conscious disregard of a known and substantial risk of the harm which the statute is intended to prevent.” Charles, supra,371 A.2d at 411. In these circumstances, the parent could not have been unaware that considerable harm would result, and in acting nevertheless, the parent is driven by the same motivation that is present when one acts out of a desire to inflict pain.

¶15We would also note that proof of malice will likely always be difficult in cruelty cases. Direct evidence will be rare. In most cases, the only person who can speak to the issue of motive will be the defendant, and the defendant has an obvious incentive to cast his or her actions in a favorable light. Most likely, proof of mal*1080ice will be circumstantial — the manner of punishment and the nature of the injuries themselves. It may be that such evidence contradicts evidence of proper motive; for example, where a child is hospitalized as a result of parental discipline, it might belie the argument that the parent acted out of a genuine desire to correct the child. The presence of an impermissible desire to inflict pain may be inferred from the resulting harm. The other possibility is that such evidence, irrespective of the subjective mental state of the parent, can establish that the parent acted with a “conscious disregard of a known and substantial risk of the harm which the statute is intended to prevent.” Id.In this situation not only the form but the length of punishment becomes significant. For example, striking the child with a dangerous object would indicate a conscious disregard of risk, but so would “spanking” or imposed isolation if carried on to the degree or length of time that would be expected to cause physical or mental injury. The severity of the injury speaks directly to the issue.

¶16In this case, appellant’s testimony regarding her motive was not directly contradicted. The government relied basically on the nature of the wounds and the manner of the punishment to establish malice. The government introduced pictures of the injuries sustained by the children and also pointed to the ages of the children, and the fact that appellant used an electrical cord to whip the children as evidence that appellant acted with evil intent, or at least as evidence that appellant acted with a conscious disregard that serious harm (of the nature which would flow from an evil intent) would result.

¶17From our perspective in this court, we cannot conclude that the evidence justifies the inference that appellant acted out of a desire to inflict pain rather than out of a genuine effort to correct the children. Appellant testified that she acted out of a legitimate desire to correct the children and the trial court apparently credited that testimony.3

¶18Further, we do not believe that the punishment was so excessive or the manner so egregious as to lead to the conclusion that appellant acted with a conscious disregard of the serious harm which would result. The discipline was of short duration. The mother testified that the whippings lasted perhaps a minute. As to the manner of discipline, reasonable people might disagree as to whether whipping with an electrical cord is in itself offensive or no more offensive than the use of commonly employed devices or methods used to exact discipline. We would only note that appellant testified that because the children were jumping around and that because she was eight months pregnant and therefore awkward, the cord made contact on the children’s bodies where it otherwise may not have done so.

¶19However, when the manner of punishment, the length of punishment, the nature of the injuries and the ages of the children are viewed as a whole, we cannot say that the trial court was plainly in error in concluding that appellant acted with conscious disregard of the harm which resulted. We realize that there are no bright lines here. We have examined the photographs (which appellant’s counsel has accurately described as being greatly enlarged) and certainly at least two of the pictures support the trial court’s determination.

¶20The determination as to whether a parent maliciously disciplines a child is factually specific, and a trial court deserves great deference in its findings. The trial court, as it properly should have, considered all the circumstances, examined the evidence *1081and weighed the credibility of the witnesses. We are loath to substitute our judgment for that of the trier-of-fact.

¶21Accordingly, appellant’s conviction is

¶22Affirmed.