State v. Wright

KONENKAMP, Justice (on reassignment).

[¶ 1.] Believing his son was responsible for a fire in their home, defendant punched the child in the stomach, banged his head against a wall, then whipped and kicked him. In his trial for child abuse, defendant asserted that these actions were justified as appropriate parental discipline in response to the child’s dangerous misbehavior. The prosecution was allowed to offer proof of two similar punishments defendant earlier administered to his children for relatively minor infractions. When the defense was justification, was it error for the trial court to…