State v. Ruesga

NEUMAN, Justice.

Defendant, Jose Dario Ruesga, was convicted in 1992 of felony child endangerment and willful injury for unspeakable child abuse inflicted on four-year-old Jonathan Waller. Jonathan survived in a fragile state for nearly six more years but, upon his death, the State charged Ruesga with first-degree murder. Ruesga now seeks to reverse the conviction entered upon the jury’s guilty verdict. He claims entitlement to a rule at common law that prevented the government from charging a person with homicide unless the victim died within a year and a day from when the fatal blows were…