Opinion ID: 2824353
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Continuing offenses doctrine

Text: Rimer claims that the district court erred by refusing to dismiss child-abuse-and-neglect counts 3 through 7 because they violated the statute of limitations by relying upon conduct that occurred outside the three-year statutory limit The State responds that the district court properly denied the motion to dismiss after concluding that MRS 200.508 plainly contemplates that child abuse and neglect is a continuing offense SUPREME COURT OF NEVADA 9 (0) 1.947A and the statute of limitations does not begin to run until the commission of an offense is completed. 2 Statutes of limitation ordinarily begin to run when a crime has been completed. Campbell v. Griffin, 101 Nev. 718, 722, 710 P.2d 70, 72 (1985). A crime is complete as soon as every element in the crime occurs. United States v. Musacchio, 968 F.2d 782, 790 (9th Cir. 1991). The statute of limitations for felony child abuse and neglect is three years. NRS 171.085(2). Here, the indictment was filed on July 23, 2008, and it alleged that Rimer had committed five felony counts of child abuse and neglect through various acts that occurred between March 11, 2004, and June 9, 2008. Because the alleged period of misconduct exceeded the three-year statute of limitations and the indictment left open the possibility that some of the misconduct occurred outside of the statute, prosecution of the child-abuse-and-neglect counts was barred unless child abuse and neglect is a continuing offense. The hallmark of the continuing offense is that it perdures beyond the initial illegal act, and that each day brings a renewed threat of the evil [the Legislature] sought to prevent even after the elements necessary to establish the crime have occurred. United States v. Yashar, 2 Child-abuse-and-neglect counts 3 through 7 were charged as violations of NRS 200.508(1), which provides in relevant part that [a] person who willfully causes a child who is less than 18 years of age to suffer unjustifiable physical pain or mental suffering as a result of abuse or neglect or to be placed in a situation where the child may suffer physical pain or mental suffering as the result of abuse or neglect. . . is guilty of a. . . felony. SUPREME COURT OF NEVADA 10 (0) 194 Th e 166 F.3d 873, 875 (7th Cir. 1999) (internal quotations omitted). To this end, we have determined that insurance fraud, failure to appear, and escape are continuing offenses. Although our decisions have not articulated a standard for identifying continuing offenses, they have focused on the relevant statutory language and legislative intent based on the nature of the offense. See Perelman v. State, 115 Nev. 190, 192, 981 P.2d 1199, 1200 (1999) ([T]he statutory language of NRS 686A.291, taken as a whole, treats insurance fraud as a continuing offense.); Woolsey v. State, 111 Nev. 1440, 1444, 906 P.2d 723, 726 (1995) ([B]ased on the fact that NRS 199.335 is intended to punish those on bail who violate the conditions of their bail by failing to appear before the court when commanded, we conclude that failure to appear is a continuing offense .. .); Campbell v. Griffin, 101 Nev. 718, 721-22, 710 P.2d 70, 72 (1985) (adopting the reasoning in United States v. Bailey, 444 U.S. 394, 413 (1980), to conclude that the Legislature intended for escape to be treated as a continuing offense). Consistent with those decisions, we hold that the proper standard for identifying a continuing offense is the legislative-intent test set forth in Toussie v. United States, 397 U.S. 112 (1970). Under this test, we will consider an offense to be a continuing offense only when the explicit language of the substantive criminal statute compels such a conclusion, or the nature of the crime involved is such that [the Legislature] must assuredly have intended that it be treated as a continuing one. Toussie, 397 U.S. at 115 (emphasis added). The explicit language of NRS 200.508 does not compel a conclusion that child abuse and neglect is a continuing offense; however, the nature of the offense demonstrates that the Legislature must have intended for child abuse and neglect to be treated as a continuing offense. SUPREME COURT OF NEVADA 11 (0) I947A cez Child abuse and neglect is damage to a child for which there is no reasonable explanation. Child abuse is usually not a single physical attack or a single act of molestation or deprivation. It is typically a pattern of behavior. Its effects are cumulative. The longer it continues, the more serious the damage. Brian G. Fraser, A Glance at the Past, a Gaze at the Present, a Glimpse at the Future: A Critical Analysis of the Development of Child Abuse Reporting Statutes, 54 Chi.-Kent L. Rev. 641, 643 (1978) (footnotes omitted); see also Lloyd Leva Plaine, Comment, Evidentiary Problems in Criminal Child Abuse Prosecutions, 63 Geo. L.J. 257, 258-59 (1974) (The parents or parent substitutes are the perpetrators in the vast majority of the cases [and] ... [p]rosecution usually occurs only after a child is killed or so seriously injured that the state decides the welfare of the child would be served best by prosecution of the alleged perpetrator.). The cumulative nature of the offense is reflected in many of the statutory provisions. For example, individual injuries to a child may not rise to thefl level of abuse because they do not fit the definition of physical injury set forth in NRS 200.508(4)(d), but the cumulative effect of those injuries may be permanent or temporary disfigurement or impairment of a bodily function or organ of the body, and therefore it is the continuing course of conduct that amounts to abuse or neglect under the statute. Similarly, it typically would require a pattern of behavior to cause an injury to the intellectual or psychological capacity or the emotional condition of a child that is evidenced by an observable and substantial impairment of the ability of the child to function within a normal range of performance or behavior. NRS 432B.070 (defining SUPREME COURT OF NEVADA 12 (0) 1947A mental injury), referenced in NRS 200.508(4)(a) (defining abuse or neglect). Given the nature of this offense, it is apparent that the childabuse-and-neglect statute may be violated through a single act but is more commonly violated through the cumulative effect of many acts over a period of time See People v. Ewing, 140 Cal. Rptr. 299, 301 (Ct. App. 1977) (discussing child abuse based on a course of conduct). Consequently, we conclude that the Legislature intended for child-abuse-and-neglect violations, when based upon the cumulative effect of many acts over a period of time, to be treated as continuing offenses for purposes of the statute of limitations. We further conclude that the district court did not err by ruling that counts 3 through 7 of the amended indictment were continuing offenses and that the statute of limitations did not begin to run until the last alleged act of abuse or neglect was completed.