Opinion ID: 1940612
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Improper Focus and Jury Instructions

Text: The majority opinion appears to adopt the State's argument that at some factually determinable point parental neglect must become cruelty or abuse of a minor, and submits that it was obvious to the majority (and to the jury) that the parents' treatment of the children was cruel, inhumane, conducive to injury, and recurringly painful. I do not think the majority opinion can blame this case on the jury when the state's attorney improperly indicted the defendants and the trial court improperly instructed them. It is not enough to say that the parents' conduct was abusive under the standards developed by the trial court, especially when the standards developed by the trial court were clearly in error. The following language of the majority opinion pin points the fatal defect in their reasoning. What, pray tell, we ask, is the difference to the child be he afflicted by acts of commission or omission if, in the end, his body is racked with distress, agony, and torment? We perceive none. The state's attorney, the trial court, and now the majority opinion all have the wrong focus. Their focus was on the body racked with distress, agony, and torment. In determining a violation of a criminal statute, such as SDCL 26-10-1, the focus is supposed to be whether the intent and conduct of the defendant constitutes a violation under the statute. The focus should be on the conduct of the defendant, not on the final medical condition of the alleged victims. Accordingly, the current felony statute simply does not include cases of neglect, not even severe neglect. There is no proof of intentional acts. This statute simply cannot mean what the State argues it means in view of the prior statute and the present amendment. All of the cases generally distinguish abuse (intentional) from neglect (negligent) and if they do not, they should. Jury Instruction No. 5 which provides in part that abuse `means every act or omission or neglect whereby unnecessary or unjustifiable physical pain or suffering is caused or permitted,' and torment `means the causing of severe suffering of body or mind' was clearly improper and the parents were prejudiced thereby. Therefore, the indictment was improper and the trial court's instruction that abuse equaled neglect constituted reversible error. The extent to which the majority opinion strains to reach its preconceived result affirming the trial court is also evident in its selective use of the dictionary definitions for abuse, torment, cruel, and cruelty. In the first place, neither cruel nor cruelty are involved because they were not used in the indictment. In defining torment the majority opinion leaves out the first definition which is the infliction of torture (as by rack or wheel). A fair reading of the statutes and the definitions of abuse and torment substantially support the dissent and not the majority opinion. At any rate, by no stretch of the imagination, or strained interpretation of any dictionary definitions did the defendants in this case inflict torture (as by rack or wheel). There is no showing that the defendants intended anything, much less torture.