Court Opinion

ID: 9523558
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 02:43:57.008424+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:06:28.376520
License: Public Domain

KIRSCH, Judge,
dissenting.
We do not know whether Ms. Fettig’s slapping of one of the students under her care was an appropriate exercise of discipline or a battery punishable under our criminal laws. It could have been either. That’s why we have trials.
We do not know whether the Beech Grove school system has a policy regarding corporal punishment, and we do not know whether Ms. Fettig followed it. That’s why we have trials.
*347We do not know whether Ms. Fettig was lashing out in anger when she struck the student or whether she was exercising the restraint we should expect from those to whom we entrust our children. That’s why we have trials.
My colleagues cite three cases as authority for upholding the trial court’s action. All three date from the 19th century. The world has changed greatly since that time, and standards of student discipline have also changed greatly. A quick internet search will show that a majority of states, together with a large number of countries in the western world, now ban the use of corporal punishment in schools. Serious questions can be raised whether corporal punishment is counterproductive and abusive. While Indiana has not banned the use of corporal punishment in schools, I have serious doubts that our Supreme Court today would uphold the “whipping” which left marks and abrasions on the student’s leg as it did in Vanvactor v. State, 113 Ind. 276, 15 N.E. 341, 342 (Ind.1888) or would uphold the “whipping” administered by a school superintendent to a student for failing to deliver a note as it in Danenhoffer v. State, 69 Ind. 295, 1879 WL 5751 (Ind.1879).
The State should have its day in court. I believe the trial court erred in dismissing the charge, and, accordingly, I respectfully dissent.