Owens v. State
| Decision Date | 17 January 1985 |
| Docket Number | No. 69582,69582 |
| Citation | 326 S.E.2d 509,173 Ga.App. 309 |
| Parties | OWENS v. The STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
James D. Clark, Thomas H. Hackel, Waycross, for appellant.
Harry D. Dixon, Jr., Dist. Atty., for appellee.
Ronnie Owens appeals his convictions of two counts of cruelty to children and one count of simple battery. The first cruelty-to-children charge involved the appellant's 9-month-old son, Christopher, and the second his 2-year-old step-daughter, Felicia. The simple battery charge involved the children's mother, whose name at the time of the alleged offenses was Carolyn Bowdry but who married the appellant prior to trial and became known as Carolyn Owens.
Count 1 of the indictment alleged that the appellant had maliciously caused Christopher excessive physical pain by "throwing said child on the bed and pushing a bottle in its mouth and hitting said child." Count 2 alleged that he had maliciously caused Felicia excessive physical pain "by hitting said child with his hands and with a belt about the face and legs and then thrown (sic) into a small chair causing her leg to be broken." Count 3 alleged that he "had intentionally cause[d] physical harm to [Mrs. Owens] by grabbing her about the neck and choking her."
Accompanied by her two children, Mrs. Owens appeared at a hospital emergency room on the date of the alleged offenses seeking medical treatment for Felicia, who was diagnosed as having a fractured femur, or thigh bone, as well as a 1-inch laceration on her right cheek, swelling around her lips and eyes, and multiple abrasions. The attending physician characterized the fractured femur as a "complete break with displacement" and testified that it would have taken a "tremendous amount of force" to inflict such an injury. There is no indication that either Christopher or Mrs. Owens herself was treated or examined by medical personnel for any injuries.
According to Mrs. Owens, who was called as a witness by the State and testified without invoking her marital privilege, the appellant caused Felicia's facial laceration by accidentally hitting the child in the face with a belt buckle while he was spanking her for tearing some pages from a book and leaving them on the floor. Mrs. Owens opined that Felicia's leg must have been broken during a subsequent fight between herself and the appellant, when, on two separate occasions, the two of them accidentally fell on her. Mrs. Owens denied that the appellant had done anything to hurt Christopher. With regard to the simple battery charge, she admitted that she and the appellant had become involved in a fight during which the appellant had placed his hands around her neck, but she denied he had attempted to choke her.
In direct contradiction to Mrs. Owens' testimony, the attending physician, two Department of Family and Children Service caseworkers, and three police officers all testified that Mrs. Owens had told them the appellant had caused Felicia's injuries by beating the child. The two caseworkers and two of the three police officers testified that Mrs. Owens had attributed the child's broken leg to the appellant's having forcibly shoved her into a rocking chair after whipping her with the belt. One of these officers, the investigating detective on the case, testified that Mrs. Owens in fact told him the appellant had "slammed" Felicia across the rocking chair while holding the child by the upper part of her body. This witness further testified that upon being questioned following his arrest, the appellant admitted he had "lost his temper and he didn't really realize what he had done."
The only evidence to support the charge regarding Christopher consisted of the testimony of one of the three police officers to the effect that, when asked at the hospital whether the appellant had mistreated any other children besides Felicia, Mrs. Owens replied that in an effort to make Christopher stop crying, the appellant had "pushed him down on the bed and shoved a bottle--made several attempts to make the child take a bottle." The officer testified that he then examined Christopher and noticed a "discoloration around the mouth area," stating that "there had been quite a bit of pressure, in my opinion, put on there to cause that."
Testifying in his own behalf, the appellant denied having hit Felicia with the belt buckle but admitted that the belt "must have cut [her] some way." He also denied having thrown the child into the rocking chair, maintaining instead that he "just took her by the hand and sat her there." As had his wife, he attributed Felicia's broken leg to the couple's having twice fallen on the child during the course of their subsequent fight. The appellant denied hitting Christopher or attempting to shove a bottle into his mouth. He also denied choking his wife, testifying that he had only been "trying to keep her from hitting me." Held:
1. The evidence was amply sufficient to enable a rational trier of fact to find the appellant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the cruelty to children charge involving Felicia. It is undisputed, even by the appellant, that he opened a 1-inch laceration in the child's face by hitting her with a belt. Furthermore, the prior statements made by Mrs. Owens to police, hospital personnel, and DFCS caseworkers to the effect that the appellant had broken the child's leg by shoving her into or slamming her across a rocking chair were admissible not only to impeach Mrs. Owens' in-court testimony but as substantive evidence of the offense. See generally Gibbons v. State, 248 Ga. 858, 862, 286 S.E.2d 717 (1982). To the extent that these statements were required to be corroborated, they were amply corroborated by the severity of the injury in question, which, according to the attending physician, would have taken a "tremendous force" to produce, and by the appellant's own in-custody admission that he had been out of control.
2. The evidence did not, however, support the conviction of cruelty to children with respect to Christopher. As previously indicated, the indictment alleged that the appellant had caused Christopher "excessive physical pain by throwing said child on the bed and pushing a bottle in its mouth and hitting said child." The only evidence to support any portion of these allegations was the testimony of one of the police officers to the effect that Mrs. Owens told him the appellant had "shoved a bottle--made several attempts to make the child take a bottle," combined with the officer's observation that there was "discoloratio...
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