indicating a judgment was final for purpose of a criminal appeal when the trial court’s judgment dismissed all counts in the information after finding the statutes controlling the charges to be unconstitutionally vague
How later courts described this case
- indicating a judgment was final for purpose of a criminal appeal when the trial court’s judgment dismissed all counts in the information after finding the statutes controlling the charges to be unconstitutionally vague
- where a nurse was charged for failure to report dime to quarter-sized bruises along the spine and a red bruise under the eye of a child already in the foster care system
- No. SC85582, decided August 3, 2004
- “it is inappropriate to project the challenge to factual situations not presented here in which the language used, as applied, might indeed be vague and confusing”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
MICHAEL A. WOLFF, Judge,
concurring.
The facts as stated in the principal opinion are troubling. They are not, however, facts that have been proved. They are the prosecution’s allegations. The record does not disclose how many health care personnel observed Dominic James’ condition, nor whether any of them reported his injuries to the child abuse hot line. This raises a few questions:
1. Did the defendant nurse have information that the boy’s condition had already been reported to the hot fine?
2. Had other health care personnel, under a duty to report, already called the hot line?
3. Were the other personnel — including health care professionals — unaware that Dominic’s condition triggered their duty to report?
4. Were the boy’s injuries marginal or too subtle — despite their graphic description here — for the health care professionals to discern that a hot fine report was required?
When the public may seem to be in righteous furor over the death of a helpless child who was subject to abuse, it is the duty of the courts to provide justice dispassionately.
I agree with the principal opinion that this statute, on its face, is not vague. But it must be construed and applied reasonably. That will be the trial court’s obligation when this case is tried.
*56 Not a single fact has yet been proved. The facts and circumstances, as proved at trial, may present an entirely different picture of this nurse’s conduct than the allegations that are made here.
The statute is constitutional. But did Ms. Brown violate the law? That question is still very much open.