Opinion ID: 1476696
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Ms. Alfaro's claim of merger.

Text: Ms. Alfaro contends that every act of attempted second-degree cruelty to children is necessarily also an assault, that assault is a lesser included offense of attempted cruelty to children, and that her convictions of both attempted second-degree cruelty to children and assault, on the basis of the same conduct, subjected her to double jeopardy in violation of the Fifth Amendment. See Brown v. United States, 795 A.2d 56, 63 (D.C.2002) (The Double Jeopardy Clause ... prohibits multiple punishments for the same offense.) (Citations and internal quotation marks omitted.) Although counsel for Ms. Alfaro makes a spirited argument in support of this contention and presents a number of points not raised or addressed in Bradley, we do not agree with her claim, rejected in Bradley, that every act of attempted second-degree cruelty to children necessarily constitutes an assault. Specifically, we are of the opinion that an attempt to inflict mental or emotional pain or suffering upon a child, if sufficiently extreme or unreasonable, constitutes attempted second-degree cruelty to children, but that such conduct is not simple assault. Accordingly, we conclude that assault contains an element that attempted second-degree cruelty to children does not, that the offenses do not merge, and that Ms. Alfaro's convictions of assault must therefore be affirmed.