Court Opinion

ID: 9569342
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:13:03.623993+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:50:23.591681
License: Public Domain

Sears-Collins, Justice,
concurring.
The appellant’s felony murder conviction is predicated on the underlying felony of cruelty to children in that she caused her child cruel and excessive pain by failing to provide proper medical care. OCGA § 16-5-70 (b). I write to emphasize that to constitute the crime of cruelty to children the failure to provide medical care may not be based on a parent’s or guardian’s negligent mistake in judgment as to when medical care is required, but must be based on the malicious failure to provide that care, see § 16-5-70 (b) (a person “commits the offense of cruelty to children when he maliciously causes a child . . . cruel or excessive physical or mental pain”) (emphasis supplied). This distinction is important as far too many parents today are themselves either underage, undereducated, unhealthy, underfed, or unhoused, or a combination of the foregoing, and therefore are not cognizant of the standards that society expects them to uphold regarding the medical care of their children. Because I agree that under the circumstances of this case the appellant’s failure to provide medical care for her child satisfied the requisite malice requirement, see Rigenstrup v. State, 197 Ga. App. 176, 180-181 (4) (398 SE2d 25) (1990) (defining malice for purposes of § 16-5-70 (b)), I concur in the judgment of affirmance.