Subscriber Benefit
As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowThe Indiana Court of Appeals affirmed a father’s battery conviction after finding he used an unreasonable amount of force when disciplining his 6-year-old child for speaking out of turn in her first-grade class.
Under an early-2017 arrangement, Joseph Fernanders and his ex-wife, Cassandra Ort, shared physical custody of six-year-old A.F. and her older sister, R.F.
One weekend in Feb. 2017, A.F. and her sister stayed with Fernanders after school. When Fernanders learned that A.F. had received her third warning in class for talking out of turn, he told A.F. to go upstairs.
A.F. then prepared to be punished. Fernanders spanked A.F. on her bare buttocks multiple times with a belt. Downstairs, R.F.— 8 years old at the time — had heard A.F. screaming for a long time. R.F. noticed that A.F. seemed to limp when she came downstairs.
After school the next day, A.F. and R.F. stayed at Ort’s residence. When A.F. bathed that evening and her sister came in to give her a towel, R.F. froze when she saw bruises on A.F.’s buttocks and leg. R.F. summoned Ort, who took pictures of the bruising and called the police.
At a jury trial, Fernanders admitted to spanking A.F., but claimed a privilege to discipline her. Fernanders then sought to elicit testimony from two of his children “as it relates to discipline, that’s it, no additional questions other than that.” The jury found Fernanders guilty of Level 6 felony battery and sentenced him to two years of probation.
On appeal, Fernanders argued that the state failed to refute his defense of parental privilege, but the appellate court concluded that he used “an unreasonable amount of force when disciplining six-year-old A.F. for her misbehavior.”
“In the hours after the spanking, A.F. had difficulty sleeping on her back and sitting on the school bus. Fernanders spanked A.F. because she volunteered an answer in class before her first-grade teacher called on her, and because A.F. had spoken out of turn on prior occasions at school,” Judge Mark Bailey wrote for the court.
The appellate court also denied Fernanders’ argument that he received ineffective counsel based on the finding that Fernanders failed to demonstrate a reasonable probability that, had he been able to present the testimony, the result of the trial would have been different.
The case is Joseph B. Fernanders, III v. State of Indiana, 18A-CR-812.
Please enable JavaScript to view this content.