Court Opinion

ID: 9774225
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 18:11:54.216876+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:51:12.480572
License: Public Domain

Darrell Hickman, Justice, dissenting. Simply put, if a parent deliberately starves and beats a child to death, he cannot be convicted of the child’s murder. In reaching this decision, the majority overrules a previous unanimous decision and substitutes its judgment for that of the jury. The majority has decided it cannot come to grips with the question of the battered child who dies as a result of deliberate, methodical, intentional and severe abuse. A death caused by such acts is murder by any legal standard, and that fact cannot be changed—not even by the majority. The degree of murder committed is for the jury to decide—not us. Convictions for murder resulting from child abuse have become more common in our courts. That is probably because such cases are being reported more often and prosecutors are more apt to seek retribution. The decision of what charge to file in a homicide case rests with the prosecuting attorney. He has the duty to prove the charge. The decision of whether the state has proved the crime rests with the jury. Our role is only to determine if substantial evidence exists to support the verdict. Sometimes the facts may warrant a charge of second degree murder. We have affirmed convictions for second degree murder in two such cases. Boone v. State, 282 Ark. 274, 668 S.W.2d 17 (1984); Limber v. State, 264 Ark. 479, 572 S.W.2d 402 (1978). Whether the particular acts of child abuse amount to first degree murder depend on the particular facts and circumstances in each case. Just as in any other murder case, the state must prove each element of the crime. For a first degree murder conviction, the state must prove premeditation and deliberation. We have never held motive relevant to murder, nor do we even try to look into the warped minds that commit murder to make their acts rational. Parker v. State, 290 Ark. 158, 717 S.W.2d 800 (1986). Consequently, circumstantial evidence usually plays a strong part in determining intent in any murder case. In this case the majority, with clairvoyance, decides that this parent did not intend to kill his child, but rather to keep him alive for further abuse. This is not a child neglect case. The state proved Midgett starved the boy, choked him, and struck him several times in the stomach and back. The jury could easily conclude that such repeated treatment was intended to kill the child. In Burnett v. State, supra, the state chose to seek a first degree murder conviction. The child was killed in an extremely horrible way. He was malnourished and dehydrated, bruises on his face and upper and lower extremities, four broken ribs, a ruptured colon, and abrasions. His life was made intolerable and insufferable until at last a blow killed him. The parents, who could not have been unaware or innocent, were found guilty of killing him, which they did. We unanimously upheld that jury verdict. It was no “quantum leap” on our part (whatever that means), just a decision based on the facts and the law. The majority unanimously joined in the Burnett decision. The facts in this case are substantial to support a first degree murder conviction. The defendant was in charge of three small children. The victim was eight years old and had been starved; he weighed only 38 pounds at the time of his death. He had multiple bruises and abrasions. The cause of death was an internal hemorrhage due to blunt force trauma. His body was black and blue from repeated blows. The victim’s sister testified she saw the defendant, a 30 year old man, 6’2” tall, weighing 300 pounds, repeatedly strike the victim in the stomach and back with his fist. One time he choked the child. The majority is saying that as a matter of law a parent cannot be guilty of intentionally killing a child by such deliberate acts. Why not? Is it because it is inconceivable to rational people that a parent would intend to kill his own child? Evidently, this is the majority’s conclusion, because they hold the intention of Midgett was to keep him alive for further abuse, not kill him. How does the majority know that? How do we ever know the actual or subliminal intent of a defendant? “If the act appellant intended was criminal, then the law holds him accountable, even though such result was not intended.” Hankins v. State, 206 Ark. 881, 178 S.W.2d 56 (1944); see also Black v. State, 215 Ark. 618, 222 S.W.2d 816 (1949). There is no difference so far as the law is concerned in this case than in any other murder case. It is simply a question of proof. This parent killed his own child, and the majority cannot accept the fact that he intended to do just that. Undoubtedly, the majority could accept it if the child were murdered with a bullet or a knife; but they cannot accept the fact, and it is a fact, that this defendant beat and starved his own child to death. His course of conduct could not have been negligent or unintentional. Other states have not hesitated to uphold a conviction for first degree murder in such cases. Morris v. State, 384 N.E.2d 1022 (Ind. 1979); Lindsey v. State, 501 S.W.2d 647 (Tex. 1973). The fact that some states (California and Idaho) have passed a murder by torture statute is irrelevant. Those statutes may make it easier to prosecute child murderers, but they do not replace or intend to replace the law of murder. Whether murder exists is a question of the facts—not the method. The majority spends a good deal of effort laboring over the words “premeditation and deliberation,” ignoring what the defendant did. Oliver Wendell Holmes said: “We must think things not words . . .” Holmes, “Law in Science and Science in Law,” Collected Legal Papers, p. 238 (1921). If what Midgett did was deliberate and intentional, and that is not disputed, and he killed the child, a jury can find first degree murder. I cannot fathom how this father could have done what he did; but it is not my place to sit in judgment of his mental state, nor allow my human feelings to color my judgment of his accountability to the law. The law has an objective standard of accountability for all who take human life. If one does certain acts and the result is murder, one must pay. The jury found Midgett guilty and, according to the law, there is substantial evidence to support that verdict. That should end the matter for us. He is guilty of first degree murder in the eyes of the law. His moral crime as a father is another matter, and it is not for us to speculate why he did it. I would affirm the judgment. Hays and Glaze, JJ., join in the dissent.