Case Title: State v. Beach

Citation: 329 S.W.2d 712

Docket Number: 

State: missouri

Court: Missouri Supreme Court

Date: 1959-12-14T00:00:00Z

Document:
329 S.W.2d 712 (1959)
STATE of Missouri, Respondent,
v.
Barbara BEACH, Appellant.
No. 47444.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 2.
December 14, 1959.
*713 Green & Green, West Plains, for appellant.
John M. Dalton, Atty. Gen., Paul N. Chitwood, Asst. Atty. Gen., for respondent.
LEEDY, Presiding Judge.
James Beach and his wife, Barbara, were informed against in the Howell Circuit Court for the offense of manslaughter allegedly committed by culpable negligence in having failed, neglected and refused "to provide adequate food, nourishment and medical attention" to their minor child, Gary William Beach, an infant of the age of six weeks. Upon a trial they were convicted and the punishment of each was fixed by the jury at six months in jail. They filed a joint motion for a new trial, which was sustained as to the husband, but with respect to the wife the court did not pass thereon within 90 days after the date of its filing, so that as to her the motion was overruled by operation of law. 42 V.A. M.S. Supreme Court Rules, Rule 27.20. She was accorded allocution, and duly sentenced in accordance with the verdict, and she appeals.
The appeal is here on a full transcript, but appellant has filed no brief. The view we take of the case makes it unnecessary to consider or rule any question raised by the motion for new trial except that of the sufficiency of the evidence to support the verdict. Consequently, the sufficiency of the information, and the applicability of the statute upon which it is based (§ 559.070, RSMo 1949 and V.A.M.S.) will be assumed. The culpably negligent omissions charged were not attempted to be proved by direct evidence, but the state's reliance in that regard is wholly upon circumstantial evidence, i. e., the physical condition of the child at the time of its death, as described and interpreted by Dr. Jack Wiles, a physician (M.D.) residing at West Plains. Dr. Wiles was the only state's witness whose testimony went to the merits of the case as *714 distinguished from mere formal proofs, not here relevant, and hence the question of the sufficiency of the evidence is determinable upon an examination of his testimony, there being nothing in appellant's proofs which aided the state's case. Preliminary to considering this single point, it should be said that it appears that appellant was 25 years of age at the time of trial; her husband, 37. They had been married five years, and were the parents of three other children, two of whom lived with grandparents. The husband was a laborer, a trash hauler. Appellant had formerly worked at a rest home, and at the time in question she and her husband were keeping four aged and infirm persons in their home (two bedfast), from each of whom they received $60 per month. So much for background of the principals.
Dr. Wiles had delivered the baby on February 19, 1958, and attended it professionally at its death six weeks later, on April 1, 1958. He had directed appellant to bring the child back to him for a checkup at six weeks of age ("or sooner, if she had any difficulty," according to his recollection), so that the date of the child's death was one day short of the expiration of that period. Dr. Wiles testified that when, on April 1, 1958, he arrived at the Beach home in response to appellant's call, he found the baby dying; the eyes were rolled back and set, the respiration was quite laboring and very slow, the heartbeat was slow, the pupils did not react to light; and the child was extremely emaciated and thin, and the lower part of its body, "most markedly over the left hip, leg and thigh" were covered with sores. The witness was then asked by the prosecutor to state "as to what the child was suffering from," and the witness answered, "Malnutrition and from diaper rash severe and as to exact cause as to what it was being in such an extreme poor condition I was unable to determine." The child died within the next thirty or forty-five minutes. Meanwhile he "gave the child ¼ cc Susphrine which is a stimulant," and after waiting five or ten minutes, "repeated that." The doctor was asked to tell the jury what, in his opinion, was the primary cause of the child's death, or the primary reason for its death, to which he answered, "The primary reason I couldn't determine. The contributory reason I could determine." His examination continued, in pertinent part, thus:
"Q. Can you tell the jury positive before then the reason this child was slender was that it hadn't had anything *715 to eat? A. No, sir, I couldn't state that positively.
It will be seen that neither the primary nor the immediate cause of the child's death was shown. On the contrary, it affirmatively appears they were not determined by the witness. How, then, can it be said that such death resulted from a claimed culpably negligent omission on appellant's part in failing to provide food? Admittedly, the conditions described by the physician were only contributory or secondary causes, and there is nothing in the record from which it may reasonably be inferred that in the absence of such contributory or secondary causes death would not have ensued, and hence nothing to make them, or either of them, causes contributing proximately to the child's death. As regards failure to provide medical attention, the rule is that "it must appear that the decedent's death was imputable to such failure, or, at least, that life might have been prolonged if proper medical attention had *717 been provided." 26 Am.Jur., Homicide, § 208. On this issue the evidence is limited to the doctor's opinion that lack of medical care was merely a contributory factor in the death. Consequently, we must hold the evidence as excerpted above insufficient to make it a question for the jury as to whether the child's death resulted from the culpable negligence of defendant in any of the respects charged.
Perhaps the case should be decided on the foregoing considerations alone, but there is another insurmountable obstacle to the submissibility of the case on the showing made, and that is the want of proof of culpable negligence. In State v. Studebaker, 334 Mo. 471, 480, 66 S.W.2d 877, 881, it was said:
And it was further said in State v. Melton, 326 Mo. 962, 964, 33 S.W.2d 894, 895: "To make negligent conduct culpable or criminal and make it manslaughter, the particular negligent conduct of the defendant must have been of such a reckless or wanton character as to indicate on his part utter indifference to the life of another who is killed as a result thereof."
We do not think the fact that the child was undernourished and suffering from diaper rash at the time of its death, under the showing made by the state, can reasonably be said to bespeak or show, circumstantially, negligence on appellant's part of such character as to evince a wanton or reckless disregard for, or utter indifference on her part to human life or bodily safety. It occurs to us that under the most favorable view to the state, its proof extended no further than to show ordinary negligence not culpable negligence within the meaning of the manslaughter statute, supra.
*718 Inasmuch as it does not appear that the state might produce additional evidence on another trial, the judgment will, for the reasons above stated, be reversed and the defendant discharged. It is so ordered.
All concur.