## Facts

- Randy Keser, a stepfather, was responsible for his 14-year-old stepson while the boy’s mother was abroad.
- After a dispute about the boy’s whereabouts and refusal to return home, Keser brought him into a car and drove toward their house.
- The boy testified Keser struck him multiple times with an ice scraper, hit him in the mouth, called him names, and threatened to kill him.
- At home, the boy testified Keser repeatedly struck him with a leather belt on bare thighs and buttocks and also struck him on the face and arm.
- Keser admitted disciplining the boy but disputed the severity, the number of blows, and whether the scraper was metal.
- The next day, school and medical personnel observed bruising consistent with a beating.
- Keser was charged and convicted by a jury of criminal child abuse under Wyo. Stat. § 6-2-503 and received a suspended penitentiary sentence with six months in county jail and one year of probation.

## Issues

1. Whether Wyo. Stat. § 6-2-503 is unconstitutionally vague under the Fourteenth Amendment because it fails to give fair notice of what conduct constitutes criminal child abuse and permits arbitrary enforcement.
2. Whether the statute is unconstitutional because it contains no express exception for “reasonable parental discipline.”
3. Whether a stepfather has standing to assert a constitutional claim premised on protection for reasonable parental discipline.

## Decision

- The Wyoming Supreme Court affirmed the conviction.
- The court held the child-abuse statute was not void for vagueness and provided sufficient notice that intentionally inflicting physical injury on a child is prohibited.
- The court held the absence of an explicit “reasonable discipline” exception did not render the statute unconstitutional.
- The court proceeded on the assumption that Keser could raise the “reasonable discipline” argument and rejected it on the merits.

## Legal Principles

- A criminal statute is void for vagueness only if it fails to give a person of ordinary intelligence fair notice of prohibited conduct or is so standardless that it authorizes or encourages arbitrary or discriminatory enforcement.
- Statutory terms are assessed using their ordinary meaning and legislative purpose; a child-abuse prohibition aimed at intentional infliction of physical injury can be sufficiently definite without listing every lawful use of force.
- A statute need not contain an explicit “reasonable parental discipline” carveout if it can be construed to exclude reasonable, moderate discipline and to reach severe, injurious conduct.
- Even where standing is disputed, a court may assume arguendo standing and reject a constitutional challenge where the statute is clearly valid as applied to the defendant’s conduct.

## Conclusion

The court upheld Wyoming’s criminal child-abuse statute against a due process vagueness challenge, concluding the statute gave adequate notice that severe, injurious beatings of a child are criminal and that the lack of an express “reasonable discipline” exception did not make the statute unconstitutional.


Keser v. State, 706 P.2d 263 (Wyo. 1985)