The jury  returned a verdict in the trial of Cesar Rodriguez for the death of his 7 year old daughter, Nixzmary Brown:  Not guilty of second degree murder.  Guilty of first degree manslaughter.  According to the New York Times interview of the jurors:

Jurors said afterward that most of them wanted to convict Mr. Rodriguez of second-degree murder but that several holdouts said prosecutors had not proved that Mr. Rodriguez acted with “depraved indifference to human life,” the standard for second-degree murder in this case. So the jury of 10 women and 2 men voted to convict him on the heaviest charge that all could agree on, first-degree manslaughter.

That crime is defined as causing death by recklessly engaging in conduct, with intent to cause physical injury, that creates “a grave risk of serious physical injury.”

This is an interesting verdict in a few respects.  In my opinion, the jury was correct in its not guilty verdict on depraved indifference murder.  But I question why the charge even went to the jury.  Better yet, how it survived an inspect and dismiss motion. 

Daddy Rodriquez beat his baby Nixzmary all the time.  Contrary to the defense assertion, he was not the world’s greatest dad.  This was a pretty twisted fellow who used force on his kids regularly, likely because that was how he learned child-rearing from his own father.  Plus, it’s much easier to just whack a kid than be a loving parent for some people.  I like to call those people “prisoners”, but that’s just me.

However, there should have been no question from the outset that Rodriquez’s  mens rea did not legally reach the threshold of depraved indifference.  He was scum and abusive, but his smacking his daughter was still a rather pedestrian act of a bad parent.  From a difference perspective, a la Justice Scalia, it could be viewed as time honored American tradition, from, the good old days when the phrase “spare the rod and spoil the child” was more popular.  (This is sarcasm, for those of you who are sarcasm challenged.)

And so, the not guilty verdict not only comes as surprise only in respect to the question of whether a jury can hear a trial of a dead child and not be overwhelmed by the need to hang the defendant.  In this regard, the outcome speaks well of this jury.

But the defense in the case is that Cesar wasn’t the one who dealt the death blow to Nixzmary.  He claims it was his wife.  So much for chivalry.  By convicting him of the top manslaughter count, the jury rejected the defense that it wasn’t him.  My guess is that they really didn’t dwell too long on the question of which parent struck the fatal blow.  It could have been either one, and the jury wouldn’t lose any sleep over such details.

In a trial like this, where there is no evidence to distinguish which of two potential actors struck the blow that caused death, there are two possible outcomes.  One, as happened here, is that the jury refuses to absolve a defendant because of this single gap in the evidence, or the other is that no one is convicted despite a dead child.  To expect the latter is to ask too much of our jury system.  Someone must be held responsible, and when you have a dad who evokes no sympathy and has given a jury every reason to despise him, you can usually bet money that he’s going to be convicted.

It’s unlikely that many people will feel sorry for Cesar Rodriguez.  He’s the sort of fellow that most of us would like to see in prison, if not beaten to a pulp in the holding cell for what he did to his daughter on a daily basis.  But whether he should have been convicted of this specific crime is another matter.  Regardless, he stands convicted today, and I wouldn’t bet the farm that he’ll be greeted warmly in the Appellate Division when he argues that the evidence was legally insufficient.