Anthony v. State

23 So. 3d 611, 2009 Miss. App. LEXIS 930, 2009 WL 4823848
CourtCourt of Appeals of Mississippi
DecidedDecember 15, 2009
DocketNo. 2008-KA-01348-COA
StatusPublished
Cited by16 cases

This text of 23 So. 3d 611 (Anthony v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Mississippi primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Anthony v. State, 23 So. 3d 611, 2009 Miss. App. LEXIS 930, 2009 WL 4823848 (Mich. Ct. App. 2009).

Opinion

MAXWELL, J.,

for the Court.

¶ 1. Fonshanta Anthony was convicted in Marshall County Circuit Court of felony child abuse and sentenced to twenty years’ imprisonment in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC). On appeal, Anthony argues: (1) the circuit court erred in admitting a medical report entitled “Abuse/Neglect Risk Factor Assessment” (abuse record); (2) the evidence was insufficient as a matter of law to sustain her conviction of felony child abuse; and (3) the verdict is against the overwhelming weight of the evidence.

¶ 2. Finding no reversible error, we affirm.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

¶ 3. A Marshall County grand jury charged Anthony with felony child abuse. Specifically, the indictment alleged that Anthony intentionally burned her nine-month-old infant son, B.A.1 While Anthony’s reports of the incident vary, expert medical testimony established that B.A. was forcefully held down in scalding bath water and sustained graphic burn injuries to over sixty percent of his body. The severe burns caused much of B.A.’s skin to fall off, and required skin grafts to over fifty percent of his body. The only people present at the time B.A. was burned were B.A.’s mother, Anthony, and B.A.’s two-year-old brother, J.A.

¶4. The events underlying the felony-child-abuse charge took place on July 18, 2005, in Byhalia, Mississippi. That night, Anthony brought B.A. to her neighbor Cassandra Watkins’s apartment, and asked Watkins to call 911. Anthony attempted to hand B.A. to Watkins, but Wat[614]*614kins refused to hold the injured child, and instead called 911. Watkins testified B.A. was screaming, his skin was falling off, and he was bleeding. Anthony told Watkins that J.A. had turned the hot water on B.A.

¶ 5. Officer David Taylor of the Byhalia Police Department was the first law enforcement officer on the scene. Ambulance personnel arrived about the same time. Taylor testified that he heard B.A. screaming the whole time he was being attended to by paramedics and observed that B.A. was obviously in pain.

¶ 6. Officer Clyde Gunter of the Byhalia Police Department arrived when paramedics were preparing B.A. to be airlifted to Le Bonheur Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. He was told B.A. was in critical condition and had been burned in the bathroom upstairs in Anthony’s apartment. Officer Gunter looked in Anthony’s tub and noted it was empty. He testified that it looked like a washcloth had been used to stop water from draining from the tub. Officer Gunter found brown pieces of B.A.’s skin in the tub. He then inspected the hot water heater and discovered the temperature was set at approximately 160 degrees. After investigating the apartment, Officer Gunter overheard Anthony telling a companion: “I wouldn’t do anything deliberately to hurt my child.” B.A. was then transferred by helicopter to Memphis.

¶ 7. In Anthony’s initial statement to police, she claimed she ran bath water and placed her two-year-old son, J.A., in the tub. She then left her apartment to take trash to a garbage dumpster. When she returned she placed B.A. in the tub with J.A. At that point, Anthony claimed she left both children in the bathtub unsupervised and went to their room to gather night-time clothes. Anthony explained she then heard water running and yelled to her two-year-old son, J.A., to turn it off. According to Anthony, J.A. stated that B.A. had “boo booed” in the tub. When Anthony walked into the bathroom, she noticed pieces of B.A.’s skin were floating in the tub. She then pulled him out of the water.

¶ 8. While at Le Bonheur Hospital in Memphis, Anthony told a different story. There she claimed she hád placed both J.A. and B.A. in the back of the bathtub, and then left the apartment to take out the garbage to a dumpster. She maintained that B.A. had moved from the back of the tub to the front of the tub, and J.A., her two-year-old son, turned on the hot water. A treating physician who examined B.A. at Le Bonheur Hospital made a notation in the records that “the injuries do not fit the explanation given” by Anthony.

¶ 9. B.A.’s burns were so severe that on July 19, 2005, he had to be transported to Shriners Hospital for Children in Galveston, Texas, which specializes in treating burned children. At Shriners Hospital, Anthony gave a third slightly different version of the events giving rise to B.A.’s burns. Anthony told a treating psychologist she had placed J.A. alone in the tub prior to taking the trash to the dumpster. She also claimed that upon her return, she placed B.A. in the back of the tub, and then left the bathroom to get the children’s night-time clothes. Anthony reported she heard the water turn on, and it ran for approximately thirty to sixty seconds, and then “cut off.” When the water was turned off, she heard J.A. yell that B.A. had used the bathroom in the tub. Anthony indicated B.A. was sitting in the front of the bathtub, in a relaxed position under the faucet, and J.A. was standing directly behind B.A. in the tub. She also claimed B.A. was not crying at this time, but she noticed “brown stuff’ floating in the tub. According to Anthony, the water was one to two inches deep and was not hot to the [615]*615touch. She noticed B.A.’s skin was pink, so she pulled him out of the tub and called 911.

¶ 10. A few days after the burning incident, Anthony reported essentially the same version she had given at Shriners Hospital to Patricia Amosike of the Marshall County Department of Human Services (DHS). Specifically, she told Amo-sike that J.A. was in the tub with B.A. when Anthony returned to the bathroom and found B.A. burned.

¶ 11. Amosike conducted a physical examination of J.A. the day after the burning incident, but found no burns on J.A.’s body. Amosike found the lack of any sign of burns on J.A. to contradict Anthony’s account that both children were in the tub together when B.A. sustained his devastating burns.

¶ 12. Without objection from Anthony, the circuit court accepted Dr. Art Sanford of Shriners Hospital as an expert in the field of “general surgery including burn injuries and pediatric burns and related fields.” Dr. Sanford treated B.A. at Shri-ners Hospital. He testified that over sixty percent of B.A.’s body was burned, and that B.A. had sustained “full thickness burns,” which are burns that do not heal, on fifty percent of his body.

¶ 13. Doctors performed five surgeries on B.A. during his one-month stay at Shri-ners Hospital. In between B.A.’s surgeries, B.A. required almost daily scrubbing of his damaged areas to remove dead skin. Over fifty percent of B.A.’s body required skin grafts. Dr. Sanford also explained B.A. will require additional operations to restore function to his hands and feet. Because the skin grafts will not grow at the same rate as B.A.’s body, he will also have to undergo regular surgeries to release the grafts.

¶ 14. According to Dr. Sanford, B.A.’s burns were straight-line demarcation burns, meaning they were in a straight line around his torso and continued from his chest down. He also testified a child B.A.’s age would not sit still in scalding water, and would have flailed around in the water to avoid being burned. In Dr. Sanford’s opinion, flailing would have resulted in burns unlike those found on B.A.’s body.

¶ 15. Dr. Sanford also noted the burns on B.A.’s extremities were mirror-image burns, meaning that each arm and leg was very similarly burned, consistent with a victim being held down in scalding water. Furthermore, Dr.

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Bluebook (online)
23 So. 3d 611, 2009 Miss. App. LEXIS 930, 2009 WL 4823848, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/anthony-v-state-missctapp-2009.