Opinion ID: 6536625
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Andrea's 2017 Assault Of Her Daughter

Text: On June 30, 2017, Andrea punished her older daughter, who was then twelve, by hitting her repeatedly with a belt. Andrea and the child gave different accounts of the incident at trial.
According to Andrea, her daughter had been constantly misbehaving leading up to the June 30 incident, and had been sneaking out of the house for the past year. Andrea said she had unsuccessfully tried to control this behavior without corporal punishment,  but eventually warned her daughter that if she continued to sneak out she would get spanked. Andrea said that on June 30 she saw a Snapchat video showing her daughter walking down a busy street with friends at three o'clock in the morning, and a second video showing her smoking. Andrea then confronted her daughter and demanded the passcode for her phone. When the child refused, Andrea decided to spank or whip[ ] her with a belt. Andrea claims that she then grabbed her daughter, turned her around, and started whipping her rear end with a plain leather belt. She said that soon after she started, her daughter gave her the passcode to her phone. Andrea said that she then stopped hitting her daughter and began to review the contents of her cell phone, where she saw sexual content, including sexual communications. Andrea asked for the friend's phone number and was refused; angered by this, she then grabbed the belt and began hitting her daughter again. Andrea said that she was hitting her daughter's legs, but that the child grabbed the belt and tried to kick her. Andrea said that while wrestling with her over the belt, she accidentally hit her daughter in the face, giving her a bloody nose. Andrea said that her fiancé then restrained the child, the fight ended, and she told her daughter to take a shower to clean up. According to Andrea, the whole incident took place within a 30-minute period.
The child's account differed from Andrea's in several ways. She agreed that the incident began when Andrea saw videos of her hanging out [with a friend] early in the morning. She said that Andrea told her to sit on a game chair and started hitting [her] with [a] belt. The child testified that instead of being plain leather, the belt was studded with metal stars. She also said that Andrea hit her a few times ... in the face in addition to her legs and arms. She said that when she tried to shield her face with her hands, Andrea pushed her hands aside, and that Andrea's fiancé assisted throughout much of the incident by restraining her while Andrea continued the beating. She also testified that Andrea put her hands around her neck. The child said that at some point Andrea threw [a cup of juice] all over her, then told her to take a shower. The child stated that Andrea continued beating her while spraying her with the shower handset.