Opinion ID: 2268006
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Attempted cruelty to children

Text: The statute under which appellant was charged, D.C.Code § 22-901(b)(1) (1996), [4] states in relevant part: A person commits the crime of cruelty to children in the second degree if that person intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly ... [m]altreats a child or engages in conduct which causes a grave risk of bodily injury to a child (emphasis added). [5] With respect to this charge, the trial judge found that things got out of control ... and in her loss of control [appellant] took the stick which she had in her hand, which certainly created a grave risk of bodily harm to her daughter, and ... with it intentionally struck her daughter in disregard of that risk, acting recklessly. [6] Appellant argues that her actions were not conduct which created a grave risk of bodily harm. [7] She states that the injuries, and the number of blows struck, demonstrate that under all the circumstances the appellant did not act in a manner creating a grave risk of bodily harm to her daughter. She points out that she only lodged three blows and that the places where the daughter was struck (namely the fleshy part of each upper arm and the fleshy part of one leg) clearly show that appellant ... act[ed] with self-control, and that she did not intend to seriously injure her beloved daughter. A generous reading of appellant's brief reveals that she is making two separate challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence: first, that there was insufficient evidence that she intentionally created a risk of grave bodily injury, and second, that there was insufficient evidence that such a risk was indeed created. Both are meritless. In the first place, appellant's argument is based on a flawed reading of the statute. The statute requires that an individual create a grave risk of bodily injury, not a risk of grave bodily injury. Thus the trial court correctly focused on the likelihood of injury rather than, as appellant contends, the degree of injury sustained. As to the question of appellant's intent, the government was not required to prove that she intended to create a grave risk of bodily injury. An intentional act is one that is done consciously or voluntarily, and not inadvertently or accidentally. See, e.g., Hack v. United States, 445 A.2d 634, 640 n. 6 (D.C.1982); CRIMINAL JURY INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, No. 3.01 (4th ed.1993). This court has held, however, that cruelty to children is a general intent crime. Smith, 813 A.2d at 220 n. 6; see Carson v. United States, 556 A.2d 1076, 1078 (D.C. 1989) (construing an earlier version of the cruelty to children statute). This means that the only intent the government had to prove was appellant's intent to do the act that constituted the offense, namely, striking her daughter with the wooden dowel; it did not have to prove that appellant intended to cause her daughter any harm. There is nothing in the record to suggest that appellant's beating of her daughter with the dowel was inadvertent or accidental. Regardless of how much pain appellant was trying to inflict (if any at all), there is really no dispute that appellant purposely struck her daughter with the dowel. Appellant's argument that there was insufficient evidence to prove that her actions created a risk of bodily injury is equally unfounded. From the doctor's testimony and the police photographs, the court could readily find that appellant's actions not only created a risk of bodily injury but that such injury actually occurred. On this record we cannot accept appellant's assertion that there was insufficient evidence of a risk of bodily injury. The judgment of conviction is therefore Affirmed.