explaining that “[w]here a defendant’s underlying conduct violates a separate criminal statute, such legislative declaration of harm may be useful, though not dispositive, to an endangerment analysis when the Legislature has defined the act as a threat to public health, safety, and welfare”
How later courts described this case
- explaining that “[w]here a defendant’s underlying conduct violates a separate criminal statute, such legislative declaration of harm may be useful, though not dispositive, to an endangerment analysis when the Legislature has defined the act as a threat to public health, safety, and welfare”
- stating that a third-degree felony classification indicates that “our Legislature anticipated that criminal prosecution would be reserved for the most serious occurrences, and not for minor or theoretical dangers”
- holding that the risk and degree of likelihood of disease or illness caused by the presence of rodent droppings or parasites is a matter of science that should be established by empirical and scientific evidence
- holding that the child abuse by endangerment statute contemplates punishment for “conduct that creates a truly significant risk of serious harm to children” rather than “minor or theoretical dangers”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
MAES, Justice (concurring in part and dissenting in part).