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-I'm former prosecutor Neil Shouse, and I want to talk to
you today about California child abuse laws, which are
found in Penal Code Section 273d.
Now parents call me all the time, and they ask, as a
parent, do I have a right to spank my
children, or is that illegal?
Could that land me in jail?
And the answer is that California law gives parents a
lot of discretion in choosing how they want to discipline
their children, and that includes the use of corporal
punishment, such as spankings.
So there is a lot of leeway for parents.
However, the law draws a limit.
There's a line.
And basically, the line is where injury occurs.
So if you use force upon a child and that causes injury--
and that could be an internal injury, such as hemorrhaging
or broken bone, or it could be an external, visible injury,
such as bruising or welts or cuts.
If an injury is sustained by the child, then you can be
prosecuted for child abuse.
And child abuse is a very serious crime.
It can be filed as a misdemeanor or a felony,
depending on the extent of the injuries and the
circumstances involved.
If you get convicted of child abuse as a misdemeanor, you
could face up to one year in county jail.
However, if the case is prosecuted as a felony, you
could face up to 60 years in California state prison.
And if the child suffers a very serious injury, such as a
broken bone or brain damage in the case of a shaken baby
situation, then it could be much longer.
It could be many, many years in state prison.
So it's a very serious crime.
Now I will say this.
There's nothing more horrible than the beating and abuse of
a helpless child, except perhaps when an adult is
falsely accused of it.
And unfortunately, this is a type of crime where we see
adults being falsely accused all the time.
For one thing, there's a lot of accidents that look like
child abuse.
Children are fragile.
Children are clumsy.
They fall down the stairs.
They get their hand caught in the slamming door.
They play rough on the schoolyard.
And it's very common for children to sustain very
suspicious-looking injuries that are really the result of
accidental trip-ups.
And when an adult sees this in the doctor's office, in the
daycare center, at school--
when an adult sees this, there's mandatory reporting
requirements, so they have to call the police or
CPS and report it.
And a lot of times when the authorities see injuries, even
innocently-occurring injuries, they rush to judgment and they
assume this must be child abuse, when
many times, it's not.
Also, it's very common for children to make false
accusations against adults.
And we see this for a number of reasons.
Sometimes the child is angry at a parent or a step-parent
or a babysitter or a teacher because the child feels
neglected or mistreated or disfavored.
And so the child makes false accusations
out of spite or revenge.
Unfortunately, as you can see, there's many situations where
innocent adults can be accused of child abuse when really,
they did not engage in child abuse.
Here at Shouse Law Group, we've represented many people
wrongly accused of child abuse.
And we've had a great success over the years at getting
charges reduced or dismissed.
If you're in this situation, we invite you to call us, let
us know your story, tell us what's going on.
Let's see what we can do to help you.