State v. Williquette

1986

Court: WI Supreme Court

Facts: Husband abuses the son; wife takes no preventive action.

Posture: Defendant's motion to dismiss was granted at trial; state appeals. Court of appeals reversed the dismissal, saying that she can be tried as an aider/abettor, but not a direct abuser.

Issue: If a parent knows of abuse, and does nothing about it, can she be tried as a direct abuser?

Holding: Yes. Decision of the court of appeals is affirmed.

Rule: The ordinary and accepted meeting meaning of "subjects" does not mean only active participants in abuse.

Reasoning: The purpose of the statute is to protect children from abuse. Subjecting a child to abuse means subjecting a child to abhorrent conduct. This is an objective standard. You are doing this if you place a child at foreseeable risk of this conduct. It must be a failure to act in knowing disregard of the facts giving rise to a duty to act.

Dicta: This doesn't require commission: omission can count just as well. Most omissions are not crimes, because a legal duty to act would be required. Even though there's no literal legally prescribed duty here, we're not creating a common law crime, because a failure to act which exposes a dependent person to a proscribed result is a substantive crime as described in the criminal code.