Sufficiency of the evidence; Fourth-degree child abuse; Specific-intent or general-intent; People v Maynor; Prosecutorial misconduct; Witness credibility; Ineffective assistance of counsel; Failure to object to the prosecutor’s statement during closing arguments

The court held that there was sufficient evidence to support defendant’s conviction of fourth-degree child abuse. Also, the prosecutor did not engage in misconduct as to witness credibility. Finally, he was not denied the effective assistance of counsel. He was convicted of assault with intent to commit CSC involving sexual penetration, interfering with a crime report, interference with electronic communications, domestic violence, second offense, and fourth-degree child abuse. Defendant argued “there was insufficient evidence for the jury to find him guilty of fourth-degree child abuse because the offense is a specific-intent crime and he did not intend to harm his daughter when he threw the keys.” The court held that the “phrase ‘knowingly or intentionally’ modifies the phrase ‘commits an act,’ not the phrase ‘poses an unreasonable risk of harm or injury to a child.’ No mental state modifies the phrase ‘poses an unreasonable risk of harm or injury to a child.’” This grammatical structure mirrors that of the second-degree child abuse statute. Thus, “the same comparison can be made between first-degree and fourth-degree child abuse that was made in Maynor comparing first-degree and second-degree child abuse. The grammatical structure of both the second-degree and fourth-degree child abuse statutes suggests that the act must be done ‘knowingly or intentionally,’ but the defendant need not know or intend that the act pose an ‘unreasonable risk of harm or injury to a child.’ Therefore, fourth-degree child abuse is a general-intent crime.” The court concluded that the evidence was sufficient to show “defendant either knowingly or intentionally threw the keys, and that this action posed an unreasonable risk of harm or injury to defendant’s child.” He admitted that he intentionally tossed them, and they hit his four-year-old daughter in the back of the head. “Throwing a set of keys knowing a child had been standing in the vicinity of the location in which the keys were thrown seconds before poses an unreasonable risk of harm or injury to a four-year-old child.” Affirmed.