Court Opinion

ID: 9649592
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 15:02:49.119745+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:56.235026
License: Public Domain

BATTAGLIA, Judge,
concurring and dissenting, which BELL, C.J., joins in the concurrence and Part I only of the dissent.
I concur with the majority in the reversal of Gloria H.’s conviction, but dissent on two bases—that the evidence was sufficient to convict her and that as a matter of law the compulsory attendance statute does not impose criminal liability on a parent whose child enters the school building.
I.
“The standard for appellate review of evidentiary sufficiency is whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.” State v. Smith, 374 Md. 527, 533, 823 A.2d 664, 668 (2003), citing Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 313, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 2789, 61 L.Ed.2d 560, 573 (1979); Moye v. State, 369 Md. 2, 12, 796 A.2d 821, 827 (2002); White v. State, 363 Md. 150, 162, 767 A.2d 855, 861-62 (2001); State v. Albrecht, *586336 Md. 475, 478-79, 649 A.2d 336, 337-38 (1994). We view the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution. Albrecht, 336 Md. at 478, 649 A.2d at 337, citing Jackson, 443 U.S. at 319, 99 S.Ct. at 2789, 61 L.Ed.2d at 573, and Branch v. State, 305 Md. 177, 182-83, 502 A.2d 496, 498 (1986).
Gloria H. was found in violation of Section 7-301(c) of the Education Article, Maryland Code (1978, 2006 Repl.Vol.),1 which provides: “[e]ach person who has legal custody or care and control of a child who is 5 years old or older and under 16 shall see that the child attends school or receives instruction as required by this section.” (Emphasis added). Here, the burden was on the State to prove that Gloria H. had legal custody or care and control of a child who is 5 years old or older and under 16 years old and failed to see that the child attended school. There is no dispute that Gloria H. had legal custody over Monica, who, at the time in dispute, was 14 years old. The only fact in dispute was whether Gloria H. failed to see that her child attended school.
Attempting to meet its burden, the State relied on testimonial evidence that Gloria H. was aware that Monica was at school but not in class on the 67 days that Monica, who was 14, was marked absent.2 Jacqueline Nayes, the pupil personnel worker, testified that she contacted Appellant in person at least five times during the school year, as well as telephoned Gloria H. several times. Ms. Nayes testified she advised Gloria H. that Monica was missing school and that something needed to be done. Gloria H., while admitting that she was aware of Monica’s attendance problems, testified that, as a working single mother, she did everything she could to get Monica to school and never “just let her stay home.” She testified to waking Monica up, arranging for a cab to drive Monica to school after Monica reported her fears of riding the bus because of her coat being stolen, and on some days, even *587driving Monica to school, though Gloria H. worked at a job that required her to be at work before Monica left for school. Gloria H. also testified that on some days, when the school called her to say Monica was absent, she would leave work to go to the school, but would find Monica in the building. Most telling was Monica’s testimony that she went to school every day, but did not always attend her classes; rather, she would hang out “in the hallways.”
While the trial judge disbelieved the totality of Gloria H.’s testimony, he did so on the basis of his sense that Gloria H. never talked to Monica about her absences, which strained his credulity:
But what is probably shocking and telling in this case, one of the last questions the state’s attorney asked you. Did you ever talk to your child about why she wasn’t going to school? Did you ever talk to your child about why she wasn’t going to school? To me that’s a bit incomprehensible that the answer would be no. When the child was withdrawn in February because the child had missed 44 days by February 24, 2006 and you never talked to her. She goes to live with the father purportedly to try to get her on the right track to go to school. She comes back or re-enrolled somewhere around February—strike that, March 17, then she misses another 26 to the end of the school year in June. You never talked to her to find out—ask her why and she’s not going. And she was suspended, as you say, for cutting classes. You never—after she’s suspended you don’t ask, baby why you being suspended, and you know you’re suspended for cutting classes, what is your reason for cutting classes?
I would have to say something is wrong. Either you talked to her or you knew that she wasn’t going and you weren’t encouraging her to going—to go to school and—or that she missed the six or seven days from school and you knew she missed the six or seven days from school and you didn’t encourage her to go to school.
So it is one of two. Did you talk to her and if you talked to her and you just encouraged her, or you just didn’t give a *588durn that she wasn’t going to school? And it appears as though you just didn’t give a durn. That’s what it appears as though. That’s the—and the hard cold reality of it all right now, I don’t think it has registered on you or your daughter until today.
I would find this ruling to be clearly erroneous, because it interjects that the parent must “talk” to the child as an element of the crime or risk criminal culpability as a result of the judge’s personal belief system.
All of the evidence supports the conclusion that Gloria H. did not violate Section 7-301(c)—she did see that Monica attended school—that Monica was at school. Gloria H. drove Monica oftentimes, insured that she paid for a cab to take her, and that she went to school when she was called and found Monica in school, although the school staff obviously did not. Monica even testified that she went to school daily.
The majority, however, determines that the evidence was sufficient, but reverses Gloria H.’s conviction, based upon the premise that “we must then determine whether the verdict announced by the Circuit Court was based upon a clearly erroneous factual finding and/or a mistaken conclusion of law.” Citing Thornton v. State, 397 Md. 704, 919 A.2d 678 (2007), the majority opines that the case must be retried because the trial court did not believe Gloria H.’s testimony and relied on an “impermissible inference” that “the opposite of her exculpatory testimony must be true.” In Thornton, however, we held that “the trial judge’s mistaken conclusions of law, which modified the specific intent requirement and unconstitutionally shifted the burden of proof to Thornton, warrants our reversal of Thornton’s conviction for murder in the second degree and a remand of the case for a new trial.” Id. at 742, 919 A.2d at 700. (emphasis added).
In the second case relied on by the majority, VF Corp. v. Wrexham Aviation Corp., 350 Md. 693, 715 A.2d 188 (1998), a civil case, this Court reversed one of the judgments because of a lack of clear and convincing evidence of fraud. We explored the circumstantial evidence presented and determined that it *589constituted “an extremely thin reed upon which to base any inference of fraud ... it certainly does not amount to clear and convincing evidence.” Id. at 712, 715 A.2d at 197. Our explanation of the jury’s alleged disbelief and reliance on the opposite was within a lengthy discussion of insufficience, rather than the determinative basis for reversal. We stated that, “[t]he jury’s prerogative not to believe certain testimony ... does not constitute affirmative evidence of the contrary.” Id. at 711, 715 A.2d at 196.
On the basis of both of these cases, the majority reverses and orders a new trial. If the majority were to have found the evidence insufficient to sustain Gloria H.’s conviction on the charge of violating Section 7-301, as I would do on the basis of clear error, Gloria H. could not be retried. In Mackall v. State, 283 Md. 100, 387 A.2d 762 (1978), we were required to apply, and did apply, the Supreme Court’s ruling in Burks v. United States, 437 U.S. 1, 98 S.Ct. 2141, 57 L.Ed.2d 1 (1978), that “the Double Jeopardy Clause [of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States] precludes a second trial once the [federal] reviewing court has found the evidence legally insufficient” and that “the only ‘just’ remedy available for that court is the direction of a judgment of acquittal.” Mackall, 283 Md. at 113-14, 387 A.2d at 769 (alterations in original), quoting Burks, 437 U.S. at 18, 98 S.Ct. at 2150-51, 57 L.Ed.2d at 14. The Burks Court recognized that the prohibition against successive trials bars “the prosecution [from] another opportunity to supply evidence which it failed to muster in the first proceeding.” Burks, 437 U.S. at 11, 98 S.Ct. at 2147, 57 L.Ed.2d at 9-10.
In Greene v. Massey, 437 U.S. 19, 98 S.Ct. 2151, 57 L.Ed.2d 15 (1978), decided the same day as Burks, the Court granted certiorari “to decide whether a State may retry a defendant after conviction has been reversed by an appellate court on the ground that the evidence introduced at the prior trial was insufficient, as a matter of law, to sustain the jury’s verdict.” Id. at 20, 98 S.Ct. at 2152, 57 L.Ed.2d at 18. The Court, referring to its holding in Burks that “the Double Jeopardy Clause precludes a second trial once a reviewing court has *590determined that the evidence introduced at trial was insufficient to sustain the verdict,” held: “Since the constitutional prohibition against double jeopardy is fully applicable to state criminal proceedings, Benton v. Maryland, [395 U.S. 784, 89 S.Ct. 2056, 23 L.Ed.2d 707 (1969)] we are bound to apply the standard announced in Burks to the case now under review.” Id. at 24, 98 S.Ct. at 2154, 57 L.Ed.2d at 21. In the instant case, the evidence was insufficient to prove that Gloria H. violated Section 7-301. Consequently, she can not lawfully be retried on the charge.
The majority’s reliance upon a trial judge’s “impermissible inference,” which is a ground for the judge’s reaching evidentiary facts contrary to Gloria H.’s testimony, is entirely misplaced. The trial judge was drawing a factual inference which, in the trial judge’s view, created evidence contrary to Gloria H.’s testimony. The factual inference drawn by the judge was the key to the judge’s finding that the evidence was sufficient. Since the factual inference was an impermissible one, the evidence was insufficient. Accordingly, under Burks, Greene, Mackall, and their progeny, a new trial violates the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
II.
The majority goes too far also in creating a bright line rule that Section 7-301 cannot be violated by a parent whose child “enters” the school. The majority claims that because Section 7-301 is unclear, “whether the legislature intended the compulsory public school attendance law would impose criminal liability on a parent whose child ‘cuts class,’ ” the rule of lenity, as defined in Monoker v. State, 321 Md. 214, 222, 582 A.2d 525, 529 (1990), should be applied, and criminal liability should not be imposed on a parent whose child “enters the school building.”3
*591The majority cites Western Correctional Institution v. Geiger, 371 Md. 125, 807 A.2d 32 (2002) for its recital of this Court’s process of statutory interpretation, overlooking the first step in seeking legislative intent, that being, “we first look to the words of the statute.” Id. at 141, 807 A.2d at 41. The words of Section 7-301 require that a parent “shall see that the child attends school.” “Attend,” is defined as “to be present at: go to.” Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary 79 (11th ed. 2005). The majority’s statutory line-drawing ignores the many circumstances in which culpability could be appropriate, and forecloses all parental liability under the statute, as soon as the child crosses the threshold of the schoolhouse doors, but does not attend classes. Although the prosecution in the instant case failed to establish that Gloria II. was liable under the statute, what could be proven in a particular case is that the child hides in the school so that the child will not be seen by school personnel, and the parent knowingly dumps the child at the school as a babysitting opportunity; or the parent encourages the child to skip classes—situations that could result in culpability under Section 7-301.
The majority, in absolving the parent from any criminal culpability, also imposes a per se responsibility on the school to ensure that a student attends class once the school’s threshold is crossed, citing Hornbeck v. Somerset County Board of Education, 295 Md. 597, 458 A.2d 758 (1983), Frugis v. Bracigliano, 177 N.J. 250, 827 A.2d 1040 (2003), and Blau v. Fort Thomas Public School District, et al., 401 F.3d 381 (6th *592Cir.2005). None of these cases, in any way, supports the imposition of that liability on the school system. In Hornbeck, this Court reviewed the constitutionality of the State’s public school financing system rather than statutory arguments or the liability of the school board. In Frugis, the New Jersey Supreme Court reviewed whether the trial court properly directed a liability verdict in favor of parents on their negligence and negligent supervision claims against a school board for the actions of one of its male principals, who took naked, pornographic photographs of male students in his office. The majority invokes the Frugis court’s statement that the “law imposes a duty on children to attend school and on parents to relinquish their supervisory role over their children to teachers and administrators during school hours,” Frugis, 827 A.2d at 1050, in order to totally excuse parents from any liability, once a child crosses the threshold of the school. One wonders what would have happened in Frugis had the school board been able to show that the parent was complicit in the photography session.
The majority cites Blau to support its holding that the artificial designation of the structure of the schoolhouse door obviates any proof of parental culpability. In Blau, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals reviewed whether a public school dress code interfered with a parent’s right to direct the education of his child. The court stated that, “[wjhile parents may have a fundamental right to decide whether to send their child to a public school, they do not have a fundamental right generally to direct how a public school teaches their child.... [Ijssues of public education are generally committed to the control of state and local authorities.” Blau, 401 F.3d at 395-96 (internal quotations omitted) (emphasis in original). Relying on Blau, the majority thereby declares that Gloria H. cannot face criminal liability because the school is in control of the child, as soon as her daughter enters the building. Certainly, as Blau points out, a school has control over various aspects of the child’s educational experience, but control does not enable a parent to escape liability if she is a participant in a child’s failure to attend class.
*593The majority’s notion that a parent cannot face liability once the child enters the schoolhouse also obviates any tort liability of the parent for acts of the child while on the premises. In In re Sorrell, 20 Md.App. 179, 315 A.2d 110 (1974), a teenager’s parents were held vicariously liable for property damage and medical expenses stemming from personal injuries caused by the wilful misconduct of their child. The court noted that, “in all fairness, it is better that the parents of these young tortfeasors be required to compensate those who are damaged, even though the parents be without fault, rather than to let the loss fall upon the innocent victims.” Id. at 186, 315 A.2d at 114, quoting Kelly v. Williams, 346 S.W.2d 434, 437 (Tex.Civ.App.1961) (emphasis added) (internal quotations removed).4 Would a parent be able to escape culpability if she gave a knife to the child to carry into the school and the child used it to harm another?
The majority’s insistence on the threshold as determinative also supports the notion that the school acts as a protector of the child, which, at least federally, is questionable. The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in J.O. v. Alton Community Unit School District 11, 909 F.2d 267, 272-73 (7th Cir.1990), along with a majority of other federal courts,5 held that school officials do not owe a constitutional *594duty to protect students. The court noted that the due process clause is not a guarantee of certain minimal levels of safety, and that because schoolchildren were not as helpless as those in prisons or mental hospitals, the school did not have an affirmative duty to protect the children. The court concluded that because “parents still retain primary responsibility for ... caring for the child,” compulsory school attendance does not mean the State had assumed responsibility for the child’s entire personal life. “[T]hese children and their parents retain substantial freedom to act.” J.O., 909 F.2d at 272.
The majority’s bright-line rule creates an imaginary, arbitrary threshold of the schoolhouse door to define liability when there is no need or circumstance to do so. In so doing, the majority determines evidentiary sufficiency, impermissible inference, and then the threshold rule to permit Gloria to be retried but not convicted. The case involves evidentiary insufficiency, and Gloria H. should not be retried.
Chief Judge BELL has authorized me to state that he joins in the concurrence and Part I only of the dissent.

. Each cite to Section 7-301 of the Education Article refers to Maryland Code (1978, 2006 Repl.Vol.), unless otherwise indicated.

. The record indicates Monica was suspended for seven of the 74 days she was absent during the 2005-06 school year.

. In Monoker, this Court defined the rule of lenity as the solution to questions of statutory interpretation:
The rule of lenity was originally formulated by the United States Supreme Court as a principle of statutory construction. The policy *591behind the rule is " ‘that the Court will not interpret a ... criminal statute so as to increase the penalty that it places on an individual when such an interpretation can be based on no more than a guess as to what [the legislature] intended.' " White v. State, 318 Md. at 744, 569 A.2d 1271, quoting Simpson v. U.S., 435 U.S. 6, 15, 98 S.Ct. 909, 914, 55 L.Ed.2d 70 (1978), which in turn quotes Ladner v. U.S., 358 U.S. 169, 178, 79 S.Ct. 209, 214, 3 L.Ed.2d 199 (1958). The rule of lenity is neither absolute nor exclusive, nor are there any fixed criteria for applying it. White v. State, 318 Md. at 745, 569 A.2d 1271.
Id. at 222-23, 582 A.2d at 529 (alterations in original).

. The Sorrell court held that the remedy of parental restituí ion fulfilled the state’s legitimate interest in protecting and promoting the general welfare and was not arbitrary, oppressive, or unreasonable. In re Sorrell, 20 Md.App. 179, 189, 315 A.2d 110, 116. Although restitution was found to be constitutional, restitution was not ordered in Sorrell because the parents’ were not afforded due process; the case was remanded for further proceedings. Id. at 190-92, 315 A.2d at 116-17. See also In Re: John H., 49 Md.App. 595, 598, 433 A.2d 1239, 1240 (1981) (upholding Sorrell’s conclusion that parental restitution was appropriate when a child was adjudicated delinquent because of acts of vandalism against several Baltimore County public schools).

. "The Seventh Circuit's position that school officials owe no constitutional duty to protect students plainly is the majority view in the federal courts.” Wilson ex rel. Adams v. Cahokia School District #187, 470 F.Supp.2d 897, 902-03 (S.D.Ill.2007), citing Wyke v. Polk County Sch. Bd., 129 F.3d 560, 569 (11th Cir.1997); Doe v. Hillsboro Indep. Sch. Dist., 113 F.3d 1412, 1415 (5th Cir.1997); Doe v. Claiborne County, 103 *594F.3d 495, 510 (6th Cir.1996); Dorothy J. v. Little Rock Sch. Dist., 7 F.3d 729, 732 (8th Cir.1993); Maldonado v. Josey, 975 F.2d 727, 731-33 (10th Cir.1992); D.R. v. Middle Bucks Area Vocational Technical Sch., 972 F.2d 1364, 1372 (3d Cir.1992); Plumeau v. Yamhill County Sch. Dist., 907 F.Supp. 1423, 1442-43 (D.Or.1995); Doe v. Douglas County Sch. Dist. RE-1, 770 F.Supp. 591, 593 (D.Colo.1991).