Opinion ID: 1476696
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Assault and attempted second-degree cruelty to children a comparison.

Text: The District's assault statute, D.C.Code § 22-504 (1996) (now § 22-404(a) (2001)), does not enumerate the elements of this offense. In the absence of a statutory definition, we have applied the common law of criminal assault. See, e.g., Mungo v. United States, 772 A.2d 240, 245 (D.C.2001). The essence of the common law offense of assault is the intentional infliction of bodily injury or the creation of fear thereof. An assault has been defined by this court to be `an attempt with force or violence to do a corporal injury to another. . . .' Beausoliel, 107 F.2d at 296 n. 14 (emphasis added) (quoting Patterson v. Pillans, 43 App. D.C. 505, 506 (1915)). District of Columbia courts have recognized a number of different types of assault, including attempted battery, id.; intent to frighten assaults, Williamson v. United States, 445 A.2d 975, 978 (D.C.1982); and offensive sexual touching, Mungo, 772 A.2d at 245. The elements of the various types of assault are enumerated in CRIMINAL JURY INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, No. 4.06 (4th ed.2002). All forms of assault share one common feature, namely, that they intrude upon bodily integrity and inflict bodily harm or the fear or threat thereof. The statute proscribing attempted second-degree cruelty to children, on the other hand, is not necessarily limited to the protection of a child from bodily harm, or from the apprehension or threat of such harm. This conclusion is supported by the language and structure of the statute and by analogous judicial precedent. Section 22-901 (now recodified as § 22-1101 (2001)) provides in pertinent part as follows: (a) A person commits the crime of cruelty to children in the first degree if that person intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly tortures, beats, or otherwise will-fully maltreats a child under 18 years of age or engages in conduct which creates a grave risk of bodily injury to a child, and thereby causes bodily injury. (b) A person commits the crime of cruelty to children in the second degree if that person intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly: (1) Maltreats a child or engages in conduct which causes a grave risk of bodily injury to a child; or (2) Exposes a child, or aids and abets in exposing a child in any highway, street, field house, outhouse or other place, with intent to abandon the child. (Emphasis added.) Ms. Alfaro was charged with attempted second-degree cruelty, in violation of § 901(b)(1). The primary rule of statutory construction is that the intent of the legislature is to be found in the language which it has used, J. Parreco & Son v. District of Columbia Rental Hous. Comm'n, 567 A.2d 43, 46 (D.C.1989) (citing United States v. Goldenberg, 168 U.S. 95, 102-03, 18 S.Ct. 3, 42 L.Ed. 394 (1897)), and we therefore turn first to the statutory language. [T]he words of the statute should be construed according to their ordinary sense and with the meaning commonly attributed to them. Peoples Drug Stores, Inc. v. District of Columbia, 470 A.2d 751, 753 (D.C.1983) (en banc) (quoting Davis v. United States, 397 A.2d 951, 956 (D.C.1979)). We think that Ms. Alfaro's reading of the cruelty to children statute as a whole, and of § 901(b) in particular, as limited to assaultive conduct, is contrary to the foregoing principles of construction. The word cruelty is not limited to the infliction of physical pain. Cruel means both disposed to inflict pain and causing or conducive to injury, grief or pain. WEBSTER'S SEVENTH COLLEGIATE DICTIONARY 200 (1966) (hereinafter WEBSTER'S) (emphasis added). A divorce, for example, may be granted for mental cruelty; and actual bodily harm or apprehension thereof need not be shown. Waltenberg v. Waltenberg, 54 App. D.C. 383, 385, 298 F. 842, 844 (1924). [10] The humiliation of another human being, reducing him or her to tears, is cruel in the commonly understood sense of the word. To lock a small child in a room in the dark for a week is cruel, though it does not constitute an assault. To limit cruelty to children to infliction of bodily harm, or to the inducement of fear of bodily harm, would accord the term an artificially restrictive meaning. Similarly, the word maltreat, which means to treat cruelly or roughly, or to abuse, WEBSTER'S at 512, cannot reasonably be read as embracing only physical maltreatment. See Bradley, at 1161. Section 22-901(a) provides that a person commits first degree cruelty to children if he or she intentionally, knowingly or recklessly tortures, beats, or otherwise willfully maltreats a child.  The use of the words or otherwise demonstrates that the statute applies not only to physical maltreatment such as torture or beating, but to other maltreatment as well. Further, an abused child, the synonym of a maltreated child, is defined in our neglect statute, inter alia, as one whose parent ... inflicts, or fails to make reasonable efforts to prevent the infliction of, physical or mental injury upon the child. D.C.Code § 4.1301.02(1) (2001) (emphasis added); see Bradley, at 1161. To suggest that prolonged psychological torment of a child is not maltreatment is to distort the meaning of the term. [11] Further, an examination of the structure of § 901(b) reveals that sub-section (1) contains two distinct prohibitions which are separated from one another by the word or. The first three words of § 901(b)(1) make it unlawful to maltreat a child, and this prohibition is unqualified by any requirement of bodily injury or of a risk of such injury. The statute then separately makes it unlawful to engage[] in conduct which causes a grave risk of bodily injury to a child. As a matter of syntax, the words grave risk of bodily injury qualify conduct, but do not apply to or limit the words maltreats a child. The use of the word or establishes beyond peradventure that each of the two prohibitions in § 901(b)(1) stands on its own, and is independent of the other prohibition. See also Bradley, at 1161, discussing analogous language in § 901(a). The language and structure of the statute thus compel the conclusion that, although the second part (consisting of the last fourteen words) of § 901(b)(1) has to do with bodily injury, the prohibition against maltreatment is not so limited. In Nesbitt v. United States, 205 A.2d 595 (D.C.1964), the defendant was charged with attempted cruelty to children by using children in an acrobatic performance. [12] The court held that the prosecution had not proved a violation of the statute because, in the court's view, the evidence did not show that the performance created a danger to the children. Id. at 598. In reaching this conclusion, however, the court recognized that the purpose of the statute was the protection of children and that the legislation was enacted pursuant to the authority of the state, acting as parens patriae, to protect `the physical, mental or moral well-being of the child.' Id. at 596 (quoting State v. Ewer, 141 N.Y. 129, 36 N.E. 4, 6 (1894)). It is difficult to understand why Congress, in proscribing cruelty to and maltreatment of children, should be supposed to have excluded the deliberate and cruel infliction of serious mental or emotional suffering from the reach of a statute designed to protect children from, inter alia, mental or moral harm. In particular, it is unlikely that if such an exclusion had been intended, Congress would have left the words maltreat a child in § 901(b)(1) without any limitation by words restricting the term to bodily injury. Further, in People v. Baxter, 196 A.D. 824, 188 N.Y.S. 181 (App.Div.3d Dept.1921), the court stated that [t]he infliction of physical or mental pain or suffering is the idea naturally conveyed to the mind by the use of the term [cruelty]. (Emphasis added.) We agree with the court in Baxter. Although there appears to be little other case authority addressing this specific issue, see generally Milton Roberts, Annotation, Validity and Construction of Penal Statutes Prohibiting Child Abuse, 1 A.L.R.4th 38 (1980 & Supp.2003), we have found no indication that the concept of cruelty to children is viewed by courts or legislatures as limited to bodily harm. State v. Barr, 354 So.2d 1344 (La.1978), is instructive. In that case, a mother intentionally left her two-year-old son in the middle of the 500 block of Bourbon Street in the French Quarter of New Orleans. The boy came to the attention of the police, and he was temporarily placed in foster care. The mother was charged with cruelty to a juvenile, in violation of a Louisiana statute which proscribed intentional or criminally negligent mistreatment whereby unjustifiable pain or suffering is caused to said child. The Supreme Court of Louisiana reversed the mother's conviction, but expressly disclaimed any notion that only physical abuse violated the statute: Unjustifiable pain and suffering must be understood to mean something more than psychological harm resulting from the simple fact of separation of parent and child. The only evidence of pain and suffering in the record before us (and it is scant and speculative) shows rather minimal distress on the part of the child because of his mother's absence. Because of the lack of evidence of these necessary elements of the offense charged, we find error in the trial court's ruling on the motion to acquit. However, we do not hold that abandonment cannot be neglect; nor do we hold that psychological harm cannot be unjustifiable pain and suffering. Id. at 1347. The court's language suggests, and we agree, that the infliction of psychological harm can contravene a criminal statute prohibiting cruelty to children, but the harm must be serious and unjustifiable rather than mild or trivial. In Murray v. State, 135 Ga.App. 264, 217 S.E.2d 293 (1975), the trial judge charged the jury, in a cruelty to children case, that a mother has the right to reasonably chastise a child for disobedience. The judge added, however, that a mother's authorization shall in no way justify the infliction of cruel and excessive physical or mental pain.  Id. at 295 (emphasis added). The appellate court held that the instruction was a correct statement of the applicable law. Id. at 296. The result in Murray was undoubtedly foreordained, for the words of the instruction were taken directly from the Georgia statute. The District's statute, on the other hand, make no explicit reference to the infliction of excessive or unjustifiable mental pain. Nevertheless, the decision in Murray tends to confirm that legislatures and courts alike view the excessive infliction of psychological or emotional suffering as falling within the ambit of criminal proscriptions of cruelty to children. See also People v. Curtiss, 116 Cal.App.Supp. 771, 300 P. 801 (1931) (applying California statute making it a misdemeanor to wilfully inflict on any child unjustifiable physical pain or mental suffering ) (emphasis added); Hunter v. State, 172 Ind.App. 397, 360 N.E.2d 588, 594 (1977), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 906, 98 S.Ct. 306, 54 L.Ed.2d 193 (1977) (upholding constitutionality of Indiana statute prohibiting any wilful act of omission or commission whereby unnecessary pain and suffering, whether mental or physical, is caused or permitted to be inflicted on a child) (emphasis added). The parties have engaged in extensive debate as to whether or not particular acts of cruelty vis-a-vis children constitute criminal assaults. We find it unnecessary to address the various scenarios that are the subjects of the competing contentions. If, as we conclude, the attempted second-degree cruelty to children statute, enacted inter alia to protect the mental and moral well-being of children, prohibits attempts to inflict unnecessary or unreasonable mental pain and suffering or psychological harm, then § 901(b)(1) can obviously be violated without the commission of an assault  an offense which, by definition, must actually or potentially impair the victim's bodily integrity. Accordingly, and notwithstanding the arguments presented by Ms. Alfaro but not discussed in Bradley, we adhere to the holding of that case and conclude that Ms. Alfaro's assault convictions do not merge into her attempted second-degree cruelty to children convictions. The assault convictions must therefore be affirmed.
Ms. Alfaro contends that the evidence was insufficient as a matter of law to establish her guilt of any of the three counts of attempted possession of a prohibited weapon. Although her claim is premised on the notion that the telephone cord in this case was not a dangerous weapon  a notion that might strike an intelligent lay person as unrealistic  we are constrained by our precedents to agree with Ms. Alfaro. In assessing a claim of evidentiary insufficiency, we must view the record in the light most favorable to the government, giving full play to the right of the fact finder to determine credibility, weigh the evidence, and draw justifiable inferences of fact. Perry v. United States, 812 A.2d 924, 930 (D.C.2002) (citations omitted); see generally Rivas v. United States, 783 A.2d 125, 133-34 (D.C.2001) (en banc). The court may reverse a conviction for insufficient evidence only if there is no evidence from which a reasonable mind might find the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Williams v. United States, 756 A.2d 380, 387 (D.C.2000) (citations omitted). To establish the offense of attempted possession of a prohibited weapon, the prosecution must show that Ms. Alfaro attempted to possess a dangerous weapon with intent to use it unlawfully against another. D.C.Code § 22-3214(b) (1996), now recodified as § 22-4514(b) (2001). An object is a dangerous weapon if it is known to be `likely to produce death or great bodily injury' in the manner it is used, intended to be used, or threatened to be used. Harper v. United States, 811 A.2d 808, 810 (D.C.2002) (quoting Williamson, 445 A.2d at 979). While some items, such as knives, have been held to be inherently dangerous, [a]n object which is not inherently dangerous can become dangerous by its use as a weapon. Strong v. United States, 581 A.2d 383, 386 (D.C.1990) (citation omitted). Whether something is a dangerous weapon, i.e., whether it is likely, as used, to produce the requisite injury, is ordinarily a question of fact to be determined by all the circumstances surrounding the assault, and the analysis may be based on familiar and common experience. Williamson, 445 A.2d at 979 (citation omitted). Thus, an ordinary object may become a dangerous weapon when it is used to injure another person. See, e.g., ( Carl) Jones v. United States, 401 A.2d 473, 476 (D.C.1979) (furniture leg used to inflict a beating); United States v. Brooks, 330 A.2d 245, 246-47 (D.C.1974) (wooden table leg thrown at the victim). In the present case, the judge found that Ms. Alfaro used a telephone cord  a wire wrapped in insulation  on the naked skin of her three young sons in a manner to ensure that they would be hurt. The testimony of the boys established that the whipping was painful, and the looped marks of the whipping were evident on their bodies two weeks after the fact. Under the circumstances, the trial judge's conclusion that the telephone wire was a dangerous weapon cannot fairly be characterized as unreasonable. Nevertheless, the result reached by the judge cannot be reconciled with our case law. As we have noted above, a weapon is dangerous if it is known to be `likely to produce death or great bodily injury in the manner in which it is used. Harper, 811 A.2d at 810 (quoting Williamson, 445 A.2d at 979). When the object used (like the telephone cord in this case) is not a dangerous weapon per se, the prosecution must prove that the object is one which is likely to produce death or great bodily injury by the use made of it. Scott v. United States, 243 A.2d 54, 56 (D.C.1968) (emphasis in original). Although great bodily injury has not been defined in this jurisdiction by statute, it is difficult to distinguish the term from serious bodily injury. Indeed, we find it impossible, as a practical matter, to envisage a bodily injury that is great but not serious. See Arthur v. United States, 602 A.2d 174, 177 (D.C.1992) (apparently using the two terms interchangeably). The term serious bodily injury has been defined as bodily injury that involves a substantial risk of death, unconsciousness, extreme physical pain, protracted and obvious disfigurement, or protracted loss or impairment of the function of a bodily member, organ, or mental facility. D.C.Code § 22-3001 (1981) (repealed). In recent years, we have applied this definition to the term serious bodily injury in prosecutions for aggravated assault. Nixon v. United States, 730 A.2d 145, 150 (D.C.1999); see also Gathy v. United States, 754 A.2d 912, 917-19 (D.C.2000). Elsewhere in the District of Columbia Code, serious bodily injury is defined as bodily injury that creates a substantial risk of death or that causes death, serious permanent disfigurement, or protracted loss or impairment of the function of any bodily member or organ. D.C.Code § 2-1542(11) (2001). There was no evidence presented in this case from which a trier of fact could reasonably find that the telephone cord, even when used as it was to administer vicious whippings to naked children, created a substantial risk of death, unconsciousness, or the kind of extreme pain that can reasonably be compared to or equated with any of the categories of serious injury enumerated by the legislature and adopted by this court in Nixon. [13] Moreover, even if we were to assume, illogically, that great bodily injury means something less than serious bodily injury, the evidence in this case does not rise to the level of great bodily injury as that term is commonly understood. The New Mexico legislature has defined great bodily harm as an injury to the person which creates a high probability of death; or which causes serious disfigurement; or which results in permanent or protracted loss or impairment of the function of any member or organ of the body. N.M. STAT. ANN. § 30-1-12(A) (2003). A Wisconsin statute defines great bodily harm as bodily injury which creates a substantial risk of death, or which causes serious or permanent disfigurement, or which causes a permanent or protracted loss or impairment of the function of any bodily member or organ or other serious bodily injury. WIS. STAT. § 939-22(14) (2002). According to the Supreme Court of Indiana, great bodily harm means great as distinguished from slight, trivial, minor or moderate harm, and as such does not include mere bruises .... Froedge v. State, 249 Ind. 438, 233 N.E.2d 631 (1968); see also McCormick v. City of Fort Lauderdale, 333 F.3d 1234, 1239 n. 5 (11th Cir.2003) (using same definition of great bodily harm). Arguably, the victims' injuries in this case were not mere bruises, but in our view, they cannot reasonably be characterized as falling within the usual definition of great bodily injury, nor were they comparable to the illustrative examples enumerated in the legislation we have cited. Accordingly, having reviewed the evidence in the light most favorable to the government, we conclude that the prosecution failed to prove that the telephone cord was likely, when used as Ms. Alfaro used it, to inflict great or serious bodily injury. The cord therefore was not a dangerous weapon within the meaning of the APPW (b) statute, and we cannot sustain Ms. Alfaro's convictions of APPW (b).