Opinion

State v. Campbell

  • 102 Wis. 2d 243
  • 306 N.W.2d 272
  • 1981 Wisc. App. LEXIS 3289
Court
Court of Appeals of Wisconsin
Filed
Apr 21, 1981
Status
Published
Author
Gartzke
On the bench
Gartzke, Bablitch, Dykman
Cited by
14 cases

The opinion

GARTZKE, P.J.

(concurring). I would hold that the complaint is sufficient. Throwing a child against a wall or into a crib exposes, and therefore subjects, a child to a serious physical injury, such as a severe bruise, bone fracture or internal injury, whether or not an injury resulted. That, in my view, is within the scope of sec. 940.201, Stats.

1 look to the dictionary definition of the verb “subjects” because sec. 940.201, Stats., provides that a per *255 son who “subjects a child to cruel maltreatment” is a felon and does not require that the person “maltreat” the child. The dictionary definition is an appropriate guide because sec. 940.201, Stats., is the only part of the Criminal Code which uses the verb “subject” and because the verb has not been judicially defined in this state.

“Subject,” as a verb, is defined in Merriam Webster’s Third Neto International Dictionary (unabr. 1976) in material part as follows:

la: to bring under control or dominion .... b: to reduce to subservience or submission .... 2a: to make liable .... 4: to cause to undergo or submit to: make submit to a particular action or effect: EXPOSE ....

The import of these definitions and the synonym “expose” indicate that “subjects a child to cruel maltreatment” means to expose a child to maltreatment, whether or not the child directly suffers from maltreatment.

I agree with the trial court that the list of injuries in sec. 940.201, Stats., indicates a legislative intent that cruel maltreatment consists of serious physical injuries. It is difficult to conceive of a reason for listing “severe bruising, lacerations, fractured bones, burns, internal inj uries or any inj ury causing great bodily harm under s. 939.22(14)” except to illustrate by example what is meant by “cruel maltreatment.”

I cannot accept the majority’s view that the legislature included the examples of cruel maltreatment in sec. 940.201, Stats., only to remind prosecutors that cases reported under sec. 48.981, Stats., may be prosecuted. That conclusion implies that without the examples prosecutors would not know whether a “bodily injury which creates a high probability of death” or another injury described in sec. 939.22(14), Stats., was child abuse under sec. 940.201. The more reasonable inference is that the legislature intended the examples to restrict the scope of “cruel maltreatment” to physical injury.

*256 Various forms of nonphysical maltreatment easily come to mind, but to bring' them within the reach of sec. 940.201, Stats., would be to ignore the illustrations provided by the legislature.

This is a copy of a public record, reproduced as it was published. It is not legal advice, and it may not be the version a court would rely on. Check the official source before you cite it.

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