## Facts

- Two-year-old Brandy Simpkins lived with her parents, Alan William Simpkins and Grace Catherine Geisler, her sister, and a temporary houseguest in Baltimore.
- On December 18, 1989, the houseguest found Brandy motionless in her crib; police and a medical examiner responded and Brandy was pronounced dead.
- The medical examiner concluded death resulted from malnutrition and dehydration caused by a prolonged lack of food and water.
- Medical evidence indicated Brandy received no food or liquids for approximately three to five days before death; her stomach and intestines were essentially empty.
- There was no evidence of disease or trauma.
- The State’s theory was that both parents, who had custodial responsibility and were present in the home, failed to provide sustenance despite obvious deterioration.

## Issues

1. Whether the evidence supported a finding of malice sufficient for second-degree murder based on parents’ omission to feed and hydrate their child, rather than mere negligence.
2. Whether Geisler’s statement to police should have been suppressed as involuntary or obtained in violation of required warnings.
3. Whether Simpkins’s sentence was unlawfully increased after it had been imposed and put into execution.

## Decision

- The court affirmed both defendants’ convictions for second-degree murder, holding the evidence permitted an inference of malice from the prolonged deprivation of basic necessities to a vulnerable child.
- The court affirmed the denial of Geisler’s suppression motion, concluding the statement was voluntary and preceded by proper advisements.
- The court held Simpkins’s sentence had been illegally increased after imposition and modified the sentence to correct the illegality.

## Legal Principles

- A defendant’s failure to perform a legal duty can serve as the actus reus of homicide when accompanied by the required mental state.
- Parents have a legal duty to provide necessary food, water, and care to their minor children; breach of that duty may support homicide liability.
- For second-degree murder, malice may be inferred from conduct showing reckless disregard for human life or extreme indifference to human life, even absent an express intent to kill; prolonged denial of sustenance to a deteriorating child can satisfy this standard.
- A confession or inculpatory statement is admissible if given voluntarily after proper rights warnings; appellate review generally defers to the trial court’s factual findings from a suppression hearing.
- A court’s authority to increase a sentence is sharply limited once the original sentence has been imposed and put into execution; an improper increase is illegal and subject to correction on appeal.

## Conclusion

The court held that prolonged, life-threatening parental neglect through omission to provide food and water can support a finding of malice for second-degree murder, upheld the admission of the mother’s statement, and corrected an unlawful post-imposition increase of the father’s sentence while leaving the convictions intact.


Simpkins v. State, 596 A.2d 655 (Md. Ct. Spec. App. 1991)