STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLANT,
v.
RANDALL ROGERS WYNNE, APPELLEE

Fla. 2d DCA | 2001-05-30
No. 2D00-1379
THREADGILL, A.C.J., and CASANUEVA, J., concur.
794 So. 2d 642 Florida District Court of Appeal, Second District (2001) Caution
Cited by 5 cases

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Holding

The court held that a father's act of leaving his six-year-old child on the side of the road after a dispute constituted child neglect, and the common law disciplinary privilege does not apply to such charges.


Headnotes

[1] A caregiver's failure to provide necessary care, supervision, or services that a prudent person would consider essential for a child's well-being constitutes child neglec…

[2] Child neglect may be based on a single incident or omission that results in, or could reasonably be expected to result in, serious physical or mental injury to a child.

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Facts & Procedural History

A father left his six-year-old son on the side of the road after the child fought with a passenger. The child attempted to follow the car and was held…

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Opinion of the Court
WHATLEY, Judge.

WHATLEY, Judge.

The State of Florida appeals an order dismissing a child neglect charge against Randall Rogers Wynne. We conclude that there was a factual basis supporting a prima facie case of child neglect and reverse.

Section 827.03(3)(a)(l), Florida Statutes (1999), defines neglect of a child as a “caregiver’s failure or omission to provide a child with the care, supervision, and services necessary to maintain the child’s physical and mental health, including, but not limited to, food, nutrition, clothing, shelter, supervision, medicine, and medical services that a prudent person would consider essential for the well-being of the child.” Neglect may be based on a single incident or omission that results in, or could reasonably be expected to result in, serious physical or mental injury to a child. § 827.03(3)(a)(2).

To sustain a conviction for child neglect, the State is required to prove that the defendant “acted willfully or with culpable negligence in creating the situation or in permitting the suspect conditions to exist.” Arnold v. State, 755 So. 2d 796, 799 (Fla. 2d DCA 2000).

In the present case, Wynne alleged in his motion to dismiss that he was driving his two children and a neighbor girl home from school when his six-year-old son began fighting with the neighbor girl. Despite Wynne’s continued admonitions to stop, his son continued to fight. Wynne stopped his vehicle on Hillsborough Avenue at the 1-275 exit ramp and removed the six-year-old from the vehicle. Wynne then drove home. According to the State’s traverse, the boy began to cry hysterically. He then attempted to follow the van, walking across the 1-275 exit ramp. Witnesses called “911” and held the boy until Wynne returned, which Wynne alleged was five minutes later.

We conclude that Wynne’s actions constituted a prima facie case of child neglect. He failed to provide his six-year-old child with the supervision necessary to maintain the child’s physical and mental health when he abandoned him on the side of Hillsborough Avenue. See § 827.03(3)(a)(l). Such supervision was essential for the well-being of the child, as this incident could reasonably be expected to result in serious physical or mental injury to the child. See Arnold, 755 So. 2d at 799 (holding that the evidence must demonstrate that the defendant’s act or omission created a potential risk of serious— not minimal — harm to the child). We would also note that the evidence establishes that Wynne acted willfully or with culpable negligence in creating this dangerous situation. Id.

In his motion to dismiss and in this appeal, Wynne argues that courts should extend the disciplinary privilege discussed in Kama v. State, 507 So. 2d 154 (Fla. 1st DCA 1987), to cases involving child neglect. In Kama, 507 So. 2d at 156, the court held that “a parent, or one acting in loco 'parentis, does not commit a crime by inflicting corporal punishment on a child subject to his authority, if he remains within the, legal limits of the exercise of that authority.”

In State v. McDonald, 785 So. 2d 640 (Fla. 2d DCA 2001), this court held that the common law privilege for corporal punishment relied upon in Kama, 507 So. 2d 154, was overruled by statute, as any such privilege is now defined and limited by the current statutory scheme. See Raford v. State, 792 So. 2d 476 (Fla. 4th DCA 2001) (holding that the legislative changes following Kama eliminated the parental privilege recognized by Kama except for simple battery).1 Therefore, the common law privilege for corporal punishment relied upon in Kama should not have been applied to the present case.

We further conclude that even if the parental privilege announced in Kama had not been overruled by statute, it would not apply to the crime of child neglect. The privilege was intended to apply to cases involving the intentional infliction of physical injury to a child and a parent’s use of such to discipline a child.

In contrast, the crime of child neglect involves a parent’s failure to provide care, supervision, or services. It does not involve the intentional infliction of physical injury. Neither the legislature nor the courts have ever created a privilege that would allow parents to discipline a child by failing to provide the child with “food, nutrition, clothing, shelter, supervision, medicine, and medical services that a prudent person would consider essential for the well-being of the child.” § 827.03(3)(a)(l).

Therefore, as the Florida Legislature has declined to provide for a parental privilege for corporal punishment in cases charging criminal child neglect, the trial court improperly relied on this privilege in dismissing Wynne’s charge.

Accordingly, we reverse and remand for further proceedings.

THREADGILL, A.C.J., and CASANUEVA, J., concur. . The trial court did not have the benefit of State v. McDonald, 785 So. 2d 640 (Fla. 2d DCA 2001), or Raford v. State, 792 So. 2d 476 (Fla. 4th DCA 2001), as both cases were decided after the entry of the trial court order dismissing Wynne’s charge.


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Citator

Cited By

  • Jovita C. Ibeagwa v. State, 141 So. 3d 246 (Fla. 1st DCA 2014)
    …lent to an intentional act. Serious bodily injury or death was likely to occur in that situation. Finally, although not a manslaughter case, dismissal of a charge of child neglect by willful or culpably negligent act was reversed in State v. Wynne, 794 So. 2d 642 (Fla. 2d DCA 2001). There, the father and caretaker of the six-year-old stopped on an exit ramp for 1-295 and Hillsborough Avenue in the city of Tampa. As punishment for fighting with another child in the vehicle, the father removed the boy from the…
  • Dennis and Mary Hill v. State, 846 So. 2d 1208 (Fla. 5th DCA 2003)
    …hild ... Proof of this crime requires the state to establish a high degree of culpability on the part of the defendant, equivalent to the kind of wanton and reckless behavior necessary to prove manslaughter or punitive damages. See, State v. Wynne, 794 So. 2d 642 (Fla. 2d DCA 2001); Arnold v. State, 755 So. 2d 796 (Fla. 2d DCA 2000). Although we have found no case in which a defendant has been convicted of this crime because of his or her reckless driving of a vehicle which resulted in the injury of a child,…
  • State v. Sammons, 889 So. 2d 857 (Fla. 4th DCA 2004)
    …isputed facts — especially where the track was parked and the fact that defendant herself approached the officer before he entered the bar — indicate that she was actually keeping an eye on her child rather than ignoring her. Compare State v. Wynne, 794 So. 2d 642 (Fla. 2d DCA 2001) (fact that father left his child on a highway exit ramp and drove away sufficient to establish he failed to provide supervision). Without some additional facts suggesting a failure to have the vehicle and her child in sight, the S…

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