Court Opinion

ID: 9782332
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 18:22:31.256685+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:15:49.733266
License: Public Domain

BOSSON, Chief Justice (dissenting). {25} I do not believe the State provided sufficient evidence at trial that the children were actually in danger of ingesting marijuana, and therefore I respectfully dissent. To establish a claim of child abuse, the State must demonstrate that the defendant caused the children “to be placed in a situation which endangered [their] life or health.” UJI 14-604 NMRA 2005. The State must first show that marijuana is a potentially dangerous substance, and then that the children were actually in danger from it. {26} Because most of the trial focused on the other charges arising from Defendant’s drug dealing, the one count dealing with child abuse received little attention at trial from either side. The State presented only one theory for the charge in its opening statement: that Defendant committed child abuse by leaving the marijuana in areas accessible to children. State v. Graham, 2003-NMCA-127, ¶ 19, 134 N.M. 613, 81 P.3d 556. But it has never been a crime, before now, to leave a potentially toxic chemical in an area where there is only a mere possibility, however remote, that a child might come in contact with it. This cannot be what the legislature had in mind when it made criminal child abuse a third degree felony. Otherwise, we risk criminalizing huge territories of benign, though perhaps careless, conduct which up to now has been the province of the abuse and neglect statutes or the law of civil negligence. See NMSA 1978, § 30-6-1 (2004). We risk making a criminal act out of merely being a bad parent. {27} I agree with our Court of Appeals that the State presented an anemic case in support of the child abuse charge. Despite the testimony of a police officer formally trained in the identification and handling of marijuana, and a forensic chemist from the state crime lab, the State failed to elicit any expert testimony describing the toxicity of the two small pieces of marijuana or directly linking such a small amount to its potential effects upon small children. Presumably, the State could have done so without undue inconvenience, and the jury would have had the kind of evidence it deserved to make an informed decision. {28} However, this satisfies only half the State’s burden. Beyond proving the degree of risk to the child’s health from marijuana generally, the State had to prove proximity: that a child was actually placed in a direct, physical line to that danger.1 The danger to this particular child must be more than merely theoretical. Although the law does not require that a child suffer actual injury, it does require that the hazard be greater than a “mere possibility.” State v. Ungarten, 115 N.M. 607, 856 P.2d 569 (Ct.App.1993). The risk of harm has to be substantial; the legislature did not intend to criminalize every harm that might possibly come a child’s way. State v. Massengill, 2003-NMCA-024, ¶¶ 43-47, 133 N.M. 263, 62 P.3d 354. Our courts have previously lent such a reasonable interpretation to the child abuse statute, and I believe we should do so here. “In making this offense a third degree felony, the legislature intended to address conduct with potentially serious consequences to the life or health of a child. The coupling in the statute of the word ‘health’ with the word ‘life’ suggests to us that the legislature intended to address situations in which children are exposed to a substantial risk to their health.” State v. Trujillo, 2002-NMCA-100, ¶ 21, 132 N.M. 649, 53 P.3d 909. {29} With this caution in mind, I would point out what is self-evident about modern households. They contain a wide assortment of commonly used agents, potentially toxic to children, such as detergents, paint products, cleansers and bleaches, insecticides, herbicides, and even alcoholic beverages and cigarettes. Most of the time, these toxic agents are not under lock and key. Sensibly, as a society we place a considerable degree of trust and discretion in parents; we trust them to undertake reasonable precautions to keep these toxic agents away from children. We do not make a criminal act out of merely making a mistake; after all, none of us is a perfect parent. {30} In interpreting the child abuse statute, our courts have recognized the distinction between imminent danger and danger which is more remote. For example, we have upheld child abuse convictions when the violent behavior of adults places children physically proximate to that violence and directly in harm’s way. See State v. McGruder, 1997-NMSC-023, ¶38, 123 N.M. 302, 940 P.2d 150 (upholding child abuse conviction despite the lack of any physical harm when defendant aimed a gun at a woman and threatened to kill her while her daughter was standing behind her); Ungarten, 115 N.M. at 609-10, 856 P.2d at 571-72 (upholding child abuse conviction when defendant’s knife thrusts at a child’s parent came close to the child). In these cases, the evidence demonstrated that children were physically close to an inherently dangerous situation. {31} On the other hand, our courts have reversed child abuse convictions when a child may be in the general area of a potentially dangerous situation, but the child is not placed directly in harm’s way. For example, in State v. Roybal, 115 N.M. 27, 29, 846 P.2d 333, 335 (Ct.App.1992), a father sold illegal drugs, itself a dangerous proposition, while his daughter waited in the ear about ten to fifteen feet away. On appeal from a conviction for child abuse, the court reversed, finding insufficient evidence that the child’s mere presence in the car put her sufficiently at risk to constitute criminal child abuse. Id. at 34, 846 P.2d at 340. Similarly, in Trujillo, 2002-NMCA-100, ¶ 7, 132 N.M. 649, 53 P.3d 909, a father was convicted of child abuse after his daughter witnessed the father’s attack upon her mother from the bedroom doorway out of the direct line of danger. Oddly, the father ordered his child to leave the room just so she would not be in the direct line of his anger. Id. ¶ 5. Again, the court reversed, finding that any risk of danger was physically remote. Id. ¶ 19.2  {32} Defendant’s case is similar to both Trujillo and Roybal. Even though Defendant introduced a potentially dangerous, illegal substance into the house, Defendant has already been convicted of possession and trafficking. With respect to the separate offense of child abuse, the State failed to demonstrate that either child was ever close enough to the marijuana to be seriously at risk.3 At trial, the State presented no evidence that these children were ever in the crib with the marijuana bud or even in the same bedroom. In fact, there was very little evidence linking either piece of marijuana to the physical location of the children. The only indication from the record regarding the children’s whereabouts is that they were running around the house, not in the bedroom with the crib, at approximately 5:30 p.m., shortly before Defendant’s arrest. When the house was secured and officers awaited a search warrant, the children were most likely outside the house with their mother. For all we know, Defendant placed the marijuana bud in the crib earlier in the day, and we have no idea if the children were ever actually in the crib at the same time as the contraband. {33} Importantly, there was no evidence that the children were ever left unsupervised by their mother. In fact, to make one of these children physically proximate to the marijuana in the crib, an adult would have to pick up the child, place the child in the crib, and then leave the child unsupervised in the crib with the marijuana bud. But the mother, not Defendant, was the parent in the house with her children, and there is no evidence that she would likely have been so careless. This does not absolve Defendant of blame or otherwise excuse his reprehensible behavior toward these children. But it does absolve Defendant of guilt under this particular child abuse statute, because the evidence does not prove the elements of the crime established by our legislature. {34} More significantly, I fear the implications of this opinion with respect to what the legislature has defined as criminal child abuse. If we are going to convict based on nothing more than speculation as to what might have happened if certain events had occurred in the future, then there are almost no limits to what a jury might conclude is child abuse. But juries do not define crimes; the legislature does. And our legislature required evidence of “endangerment,” which, under our existing case law, means something more than “what might have been.” {35} Under its broad reading of the statute, the majority is effectively allowing the jury to usurp the role of the legislature in determining what constitutes child abuse. I cannot agree to such a standard-less, open-ended reading, especially of a criminal statute. I especially fear the due process implications to which we give rise with such an unprecedented reading of our child abuse law. Accordingly, with respect, I am compelled to dissent. I CONCUR. PAMELA B. MINZNER, Justice.  . Even with the presumed toxicity of marijuana, and fully recognizing its illegality, the State nonetheless had the burden of producing evidence of proximity.   . The special concurrence implies a certain dissatisfaction with the Court of Appeals opinion in Tmjillo. Yet Trujillo was and is the law of this State. This Court had the opportunity to review it on certiorari, yet declined, to do so. The present majority opinion maltes no change in Trujillo.   . As the majority opinion correctly states, Defendant took full responsibility for the presence of the marijuana in the house and its location. However, Defendant never conceded its proximity to the children, nor was there any other direct evidence of its actual proximity to the children in terms of place and time.