Court Opinion

ID: 9580341
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:04:10.919988+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:36:13.042829
License: Public Domain

Beasley, Judge,
concurring specially.
I concur.
According to the statute, the crime of “cruelty to children” can be committed in one of two ways: “(a) . . . wilfully depriving] the child of necessary sustenance to the extent that the child’s health or well-being is jeopardized,” or “(b) . . . maliciously causfing] a child under the age of 18 cruel or excessive physical or mental pain.” These are the two methods or manners of treating children which are deemed criminal.
It is the second method, maliciously causing pain, which is charged here. The words “cruel,” “excessive,” “physical,” and “mental” are adjectives, used by the legislature to describe the type of pain which when maliciously inflicted on a child constitutes criminal behavior. They provide a definition. See Allen v. State, 174 Ga. App. 206, 208 (3) (329 SE2d 586) (1985).
*876These words are not different methods. “Method” is a noun, not an adjective. Methods are the means by which some end result is accomplished. It is a procedure or process, a way or manner of doing something. Webster’s New Intl. Dictionary, 2nd ed.
For example, a person commits the crime of theft by shoplifting in one of five ways, i.e., when he “conceals, or takes possession,” or “alters,” or “transfers,” or “interchanges,” or “wrongfully causes.” OCGA § 16-8-14. See Nesmith v. State, 183 Ga. App. 529 (359 SE2d 421) (1987). This statutory scheme of prohibiting certain acts which are expressly described by their various methods, that is, by how they are committed, prevents the prohibition from being vague. Davis v. State, 234 Ga. 730, 733 (6) (218 SE2d 20) (1975).1 See Wilson v. State, 245 Ga. 49, 53 (262 SE2d 810) (1980).
So it is in this case. Defendant was charged in the indictment, and in the court’s charge, with committing cruelty to children. How? By maliciously causing a certain type of pain, pain described as “cruel” and as “physical” and “mental.” It is, according to the statute, only “cruel” pain, or “excessive” pain, which is criminal. If “cruel” pain is not always “excessive” pain, it is difficult to detect a difference in this case.
If anything, the court’s charge, which included the adjective “excessive” in reading the statute, added a burden to the state’s side. The concept of excessiveness, which relates to the degree of pain, was injected although the state had not assumed that further burden. If the jury truly noticed it, focused as they were on the words in the indictment, it benefited rather than harmed defendant.

 Although Davis construed the predecessor statute, Code § 26-2801, the words are the same in the current version.