Court Opinion

ID: 9782331
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 18:22:31.250586+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:15:49.731594
License: Public Domain

CHÁVEZ, Justice (specially concurring). {17} I concur with the opinion authored by Justice Serna. I write separately to address some of the concerns raised in the dissenting opinion. {18} In order to prove the offense of child abuse under Section 30-6-1(0(1), the State must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Defendant knowingly, intentionally or negligently, and without justifiable cause, permitted a child to be placed in a situation that may endanger the child’s life or health. NMSA 1978, § 30-6-l(D) (2001). In child abuse cases, we have held that the Legislature intended the phrase “may endanger” to constitute “a reasonable probability or possibility” that the child will be endangered. State v. Ungarten, 115 N.M. 607, 609, 856 P.2d 569, 571 (Ct.App.1993). In this case the jury was instructed that the State had the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that Defendant caused a child or children to be placed in a situation which endangered their life or health. UJI 14-604 NMRA 2005. {19} In my opinion, although this is a close case, the evidence was sufficient to support the conviction. I do not agree with the dissent that by sustaining this conviction we make bad parenting a crime. This is not simply a case of bad parenting or a “mistake” as characterized by the dissent. In this case two children, ages one and three, were running around the house while adults smoked marijuana rolled in cigar paper. A marijuana cigarette bud was left on the floor where the children were playing. An open bag with marijuana residue was left sitting on a table. Marijuana seeds and stems were left on a dresser in the room where the baby crib was located. In the baby crib was a marijuana bud, which, according to expert testimony, is the most potent part of the marijuana plant. The case would have been much stronger had a witness testified that the children were chewing the marijuana left within their reach and had a toxicologist testified regarding the toxicity of marijuana. However, in this case the law does not require such direct evidence. See State v. McGruder, 1997-NMSC-023, 123 N.M. 302, 940 P.2d 150. Given the jury’s reasonable inference in this case that the marijuana bud, a particularly potent and illegal substance, could harm a child if ingested, I believe the evidence of marijuana left in the baby’s crib and the areas where the children were playing is sufficient to support a finding of a reasonable probability or possibility that the children would be endangered. {20} I am also not persuaded by the concern expressed in the dissent that the Court’s holding criminalizes leaving household products accessible to children. Each of the products to which the dissent refers is legal. I do not read Justice Serna’s opinion as prohibiting legitimate acts. Additionally, toxic household products have child resistant caps. The Defendant in this case left the marijuana accessible to children without taking any steps whatsoever to eliminate or minimize the risk that the children would ingest the marijuana. A reasonable fact finder could find that such an act constitutes child abuse as defined by the Legislature. {21} Finally, the dissent relies on State v. Trujillo as support for the proposition that a child must be directly in harm’s way to support a conviction of child abuse. Much like the dissent in this case, Trujillo seems to require proof of actual injury beyond all doubt. In Trujillo the Court of Appeals reversed a jury finding of child abuse, holding there was insufficient evidence that a child who witnessed the beating of her mother faced a “substantial risk” to her emotional or physical health. 2002-NMCA-100, ¶¶ 20-21, 132 N.M. 649, 53 P.3d 909. In that case, the drunken father came home late one night, and, as the children slept, he began to beat his wife. The beating was loud enough to awaken the couple’s eight-year-old child, who went to the room to see what was happening. The child testified that she saw her dad beating her mother as the mother asked him to stop. When the child appeared at the door the father stopped beating the child’s mother and said to the child, “Get your little f_-ing ass back to bed because I don’t want to have you see me kill your mother.” Id. ¶5. The Court of Appeals held there was insufficient evidence for a jury to find a “reasonable probability or possibility” that the daughter’s emotional health was endangered, id. ¶ 20, despite testimony from the child and the mother that the child was scared and saddened by what she witnessed, and that for some time the child lived in fear that she would be “taken away,” or that her father would injure her or kill her mother, to the extent that she missed many days of school. Id. ¶¶ 11-12. The dissent in this case underscores the lack of evidence of direct, physical harm to the child in Trujillo, emphasizing that “the father ordered his child to leave the room just so she would not be in the direct line of his anger.” ¶ 31. In my opinion, requiring this type of evidence to sustain a jury finding of child abuse goes well beyond requiring the prosecution to prove each element of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt. {22} Justice is a community project in which individuals participate directly when serving on a jury. While it is certainly appropriate in some cases to reverse a jury conviction based on insufficient evidence, this is not the case. The jury was instructed in such a way that what may be a vague and overbroad statute — requiring only a showing that a child was negligently placed in a situation that may have endangered the child — in fact required a showing that the child was placed in a situation which endangered the child’s life. For the reasons previously stated, I believe a reasonable jury could find the defendant guilty based on the direct and circumstantial evidence presented to the jury and the reasonable inferences that could be drawn from such evidence. {23} If our interpretation of legislative intent is incorrect as it relates to child abuse, let us err on the side of the safety of children. If the Legislature did not intend for the child abuse definition to reach the circumstance in which illegal drugs are placed within reach of children, the Legislature should revise the definition and tighten up what may be a vague and overbroad statute. {24} Por the foregoing reasons, I concur in affirming Defendant’s conviction for child abuse.