Court Opinion

ID: 9531890
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:15:42.519729+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:36.985042
License: Public Domain

Justice SCOTT
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
While I would uphold the convictions and life sentences imposed against Gerald Des-kins for vehicular homicide and the habitual offender counts and thus concur in part I of the majority opinion, I do not join in part II of that opinion. I dissent from part II because I believe that under the facts present here, while Deskins could be found guilty of child abuse, § 18-6-401(1), 8B C.R.S. (1986 and 1992 Supp.), the enhanced sentence *374should not be imposed under sections 18-6-401(7)(a)(I) and (7)(a)(III). In my view, the majority reads our child abuse statute too broadly, potentially subjecting any citizen to a heightened criminal sentence solely because his or her negligent conduct results in an automobile accident causing serious bodily injury to a child — imposing criminal sentences I believe the General Assembly did not intend.
I
A
Section- 18-6-401, 8B C.R.S. (1986 and 1992 Supp.), the controlling statute, provided at the time of the offense:1
(1) A person commits child abuse if such person causes an injury to a child’s life or health, or permits a child to be unreasonably placed in a situation which poses a threat of injury to the child’s life or health....
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(7)(a)(I) When a person acts knowingly or recklessly and the child abuse results in death to the child, it is a class 2 felony.
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(7)(a)(III) When a person acts knowingly or recklessly and the child abuse results in serious bodily injury to the child, it is a class 3 felony.
(Emphasis added.) While the majority places great reliance upon Lybarger v. People, 807 P.2d 570, 575 (Colo.1991), in which we discussed the “culpable mental states applicable to a crime of child abuse,” the facts of that case gave rise to a nexus between the defendant’s acts and “the child’s circumstances.” Id. Hence, criminal liability was premised upon “the nature of the offender’s conduct in relation to the child,” id. (emphasis added), a consequence distinguishable from the facts here.
In Lybarger, Jon Lybarger was charged with felony child abuse resulting in death when his five-week-old daughter died from respiratory failure due to acute necrotizing bronchial pneumonia. Lybarger did not follow the advice of a licensed practical nurse and faded to take his daughter to a doctor or hospital when she suffered from congestion, coughing, inability to breathe, and other pneumonia or cold-like symptoms. Instead of medical care, Lybarger opted to rely solely on prayer as a means of treating his daughter’s illness. Lybarger was a recognized minister in the Word of Faith Evangelistic Association, a small fundamentalist Christian religious organization. In accordance with the tenets of his religious beliefs, Lybarger and his wife relied on spiritual treatment through prayer to improve their child’s health, denying the child much needed medical attention. While we reversed Ly-barger’s conviction because the trial court erroneously instructed the jury on the “treatment by spiritual means” defense, we discussed “the statutory scheme relating to the crime of child abuse resulting in death.” Id. at 575.
In Lybarger, there was a nexus between the defendant’s conduct and the circumstances or condition of the child. To the contrary, in this case, other than the event of the accident, there is no identifiable relationship or nexus between the defendant and the child victims. Although we are confronted with a most unfortunate accident and while I do not disagree that the defendant must be held accountable for the natural and probable consequences of his acts,21 cannot agree that unreasonable conduct not directed at a victim is sufficient for the enhanced criminal liability set forth in subsections 7(a)(1) (where acts *375result in death) and 7(a)(III) (where acts result in serious bodily injury).
As we held in Lybarger, the “crime of child abuse [does not] relate[ ] to a particular result but rather to the nature of the offender’s conduct in relation to the child or to the circumstances under which the act or omission occurred.” Id. In my view, the defendant’s culpability requires a purposeful act or omission which the defendant should realize is dangerous to a child’s safety. It is the defendant’s conduct, under circumstances he is aware of, that is the nature of the prohibited conduct set forth in subsections 7(a)(1) and 7(a)(III) of section 18-6^01.
I would find culpability under similar facts if the defendant had placed his own or other children in his car under his diminished driving capacity and proceeded, as he did, to drive his car. Such willful and wanton conduct, which creates a potential of harm to children the defendant knows or should know are subject to his acts, is, in my view, the minimum mens rea necessary for liability under the statute. Thus, under these facts, the nexus between the defendant and the victim, based on defendant’s awareness of the presence of a child, is lacking and therefore, insufficient for a reckless or knowing state of mind.
B
In their treatise, Substantive Criminal Law, professors LaFave and Scott discuss recklessness and negligence:
It came to be the general feeling of the judges when defining common law crimes (not always so strongly shared later by the legislatures when defining statutory crimes) that something more was required for criminal liability than the ordinary negligence which is sufficient for tort liability. The thought was this: When it comes to compensating an injured person for damages suffered, the one who has negligently injured an innocent victim ought to pay for it; but when the problem is one of whether to impose criminal punishment on the one who caused the injury, then something extra — beyond ordinary negligence — should be required. What is that “something extra” which the criminal law generally requires? It might logically be either one or both of two things: (1) Perhaps the defendant’s conduct must involve a greater risk of harm to others than tort negligence requires. In other words, perhaps a “high degree of negligence,” rather than “ordinary negligence,” is necessary. (2) Perhaps, without requiring any riskier conduct than is necessary for ordinary negligence, the criminal law might require that the defendant consciously realize, in his own mind, the risk he is creating — a realization which is not required in the case of ordinary negligence. In other words, perhaps the difference between ordinary negligence and criminal negligence is simply that objective fault will do for the former, while subjective fault is required for the latter. (3) Perhaps the criminal law might require both (a) conduct creating a higher degree of risk than is necessary for ordinary negligence and (b) a subjective awareness that the conduct creates such a risk. The term “recklessness” is sometimes used to designate conduct which involves these two extra factors, (a) and (b), in addition to the requirements of ordinary negligence. The other expression commonly used to indicate something more than ordinary negligence is “gross negligence,” but that expression does not give any clue as to whether it is greater riskiness or subjective realization of risk or both which goes into the word “gross.”
Wayne R. LaFave & Austin W. Scott, Jr., Substantive Criminal Law § 3.7, at 326 (1986) (footnote omitted). In reading, once again, our statutory scheme, I would hold that while subsection 18-6-401(1) contemplates “criminal negligence,” the aggravated sentences called for in subsections 18-6-401(7)(a)(I) and (a)(III) certainly require “subjective fault” or “a subjective awareness.”
We held in Lybarger that “the culpable mental states applicable to a crime of child abuse relate not to a particular result but rather to the nature of the offender’s conduct in relation to the child or to the circumstances under which the act or omission occurred.” Lybarger, 807 P.2d at 575. We further stated that a person acts recklessly *376when he “consciously disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk that, in light of the child’s circumstances, a particular act or omission will place the child in a situation which poses a threat of injury to the child’s life or health.” Id. (emphasis added).
I believe a greater level of intent is necessary to meet our use of the language “in light of the child’s circumstances.” As I read Lybarger, our use of that phrase makes an actual awareness of the child’s circumstances integral to any culpability. It therefore requires us to consider the defendant’s acts in relation to the child and not allow culpability to rest on mere unreasonableness. In particular, the use of the terms “knowingly or recklessly,” I would hold, requires a determination that the defendant’s conduct must be purposeful and committed without regard to “injury to the child’s life or health.”
The statutory language was applied easily in Lybarger because the “child’s circumstances” were known to Lybarger. Lybar-ger clearly knew that his daughter was ill. In contrast, in this case, the defendant did not know of “the child’s circumstances” because, despite the unreasonableness of his acts, he did not act with a “subjective awareness” that his conduct would result in serious bodily injury or death to a child.
II
I agree with the majority that our recent decision in People v. Gray, 920 P.2d 787 (Colo.1996), is dispositive on the first issue and would reverse the court of appeals’ judgment regarding the Curtis advisement.3 However, I raise the prospect of exercising our superintending authority by adopting, as part of the Curtis advisement, a prescribed litany, which we rejected in People v. Chavez, 853 P.2d 1149, 1151 (Colo.1993). Unless we do adopt such a litany, it seems to me, so long as “a trial court applies correct standards, makes necessary findings to establish a waiver, and evidence exists to support those findings, then the trial court’s findings of waiver [should] not be disturbed on review.” Gray, 920 P.2d at 790 (citing Curtis, 681 P.2d at 515 and Roelker v. People, 804 P.2d 1336, 1339 (Colo.1991)).
Ill
Accordingly, while I join part I, I respectfully dissent as to part II of the majority opinion.

. Section 18-6 — 401 was amended in 1995. However, those amendments did not alter the language of the particular provisions relevant here.

. As indicated in the majority opinion, the defendant, Gerald Deskins, has been convicted of three counts of vehicular homicide and habitual offender counts resulting in a sentence to five consecutive terms of life. Maj. op. at 369. However, even if we reverse the aggravated child abuse conviction, Deskins will serve more than one term of life under his current sentence. A conviction of child abuse resulting in death, an additional count, is of little consequence in this case. However, it is the future cases involving defendants in circumstances not so egregious and which result in "serious bodily injury to [a] child" that are of concern to me.

. People v. Curtis, 681 P.2d 504 (Colo.1984).