## Facts

- Mary Lee Collins gave birth to her son, Joshua, in January 1987 while she was incarcerated.
- After Collins’s release, she began a relationship with Raymond Earl Leet.
- In January 1988, Collins moved into Leet’s home with Joshua and Joshua’s older brother, Nathan.
- Although Leet was not the children’s father, he helped care for them and provide for them while they lived in his home as a family unit.
- Over the following months, Collins repeatedly inflicted physical injuries on Joshua while Leet was away, and she gave Leet explanations that minimized or denied abuse.
- Child-protection authorities investigated reports of Joshua’s injuries on more than one occasion; despite the concerns, the children were returned to Collins’s care.
- By this time, Collins was pregnant with Leet’s child.
- In late November 1988, Joshua suffered multiple obvious and serious injuries over several consecutive days.
- Leet came home from work on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday and observed new serious injuries each day; Collins denied causing them.
- On Friday, Collins went into labor. Leet cared for Joshua and Nathan while Collins was at the hospital.
- Joshua’s condition deteriorated to the point that he appeared near-comatose, was not eating, and was vomiting, yet Leet did not obtain medical help or contact authorities.
- Leet drove with the children to the hospital to pick up Collins. At the hospital, Collins discovered Joshua was not breathing.
- Joshua died shortly afterward from severe injuries caused by abuse.
- Collins was convicted of aggravated child abuse and first-degree felony murder and received a life sentence.
- Leet was charged and convicted of child abuse and third-degree felony murder based on his failure to protect Joshua while Joshua lived in Leet’s home, and he appealed.

## Issues

1. Was the evidence sufficient to create a jury question that a live-in, nonparent caregiver had a legal duty to take reasonable steps to prevent the mother’s abuse of her child living permanently in his home?
2. Was the evidence sufficient to support findings that Leet’s omissions were culpably negligent child abuse and could serve as the predicate felony for third-degree felony murder, even though the final injuries were inflicted in his absence?

## Decision

- Affirmed Leet’s convictions for child abuse and third-degree felony murder.
- Held the evidence was sufficient to permit the jury to find Leet had a legal obligation to take reasonable steps to protect Joshua from abuse while Joshua lived in Leet’s home on a permanent basis.
- Held the evidence was sufficient for a jury to find Leet culpably negligent based on the repeated, obvious injuries; his awareness of prior investigations; the escalating severity of harm; and his failure to seek medical help or otherwise intervene.
- Certified a question to the Florida Supreme Court concerning the scope of a nonparent cohabitant’s duty and criminal exposure for failure to protect a child in these circumstances.

## Legal Principles

- Criminal liability for an omission generally requires proof of a legal duty to act; without a duty, a failure to act is not enough.
- A legal duty to protect a child may arise when a nonparent lives with the child in a permanent household and assumes significant responsibilities for the child’s care and support.
- Under Florida’s child-abuse statute, child abuse can be committed by culpably negligent acts or omissions, not only by direct physical violence.
- “Culpable negligence” is more than ordinary carelessness; it is a gross and flagrant failure to use reasonable care in circumstances where serious injury or death is reasonably foreseeable.
- Third-degree felony murder may be supported when the defendant commits felony child abuse by culpably negligent omission and the child’s death results from the abusive course of conduct the defendant failed to address.

## Conclusion

Leet v. State upheld convictions where a live-in boyfriend who helped care for children in his home could be found to have a legal duty to protect one child from the mother’s ongoing abuse, and where repeated visible injuries, prior agency involvement, and the child’s rapid decline supported a jury finding that Leet’s inaction was culpably negligent child abuse that also supported third-degree felony murder.


Leet v. State, 595 So.2d 959 (1991)